Welcome Finance - Unfair/Unjust Debt Collection

Dear to whom it ever may concern,

I am writing to you in regards to my account “@@@@@@” at the request of the phone call I just had with one of the customer service team on the number “0800 678 1100” I am very displeased at Welcome Finance for their audacity for their debt recovery for the sum of £2,600.

I wish to lodge a complaint at about the service and negligence towards me, back in 2007 when I bought the car I couldn’t really afford it at all and if any Sales rep worth their salt would have even said this at the time of sale with proper checks would have just refused a young naive 21 year old but in the case of the Sales Rep “Paul Kasey” he did not infact do that but saw pounds signs in his eyes and went through with a sale that had astronomical APR attached to it.

I part exchanged my Renault Clio I had at the time for £500 which was used a “Deposit” and I signed a bunch of forms, one form which I will attach later when I can scan it, had a check list of “Payment Protection Insurance” “Mechanical Break Down insurance” “short fall sum” which I believe is for insurances purposes if I had a crash, however the “PPI” I had which the check list box is ticked “Y” for was meant to cover me if I lost my job… that did happen and I could not afford the car at all, there was no way I could pay for the car and petrol was expensive, I had numerous phone calls to the manager of the branch who even offered me to come down to the Branch and to discuss to which I did, he then offered me a Citreon C1 but I explained to him that if I couldn’t afford to pay the monthly fee’s then no matter what the car, I still couldn’t afford it and thus did not go through with an exchange.

There was a point in the original contract too which stated if I paid half the amount (I believe the sum was £4,000) then I could return the car to which no avail as I tried that many times and if Welcome Finance still have these phone calls recordings then I wish to retrieve them as it will state this…. I only had one more option according to them, I missed payments due to the only income at the time was jobseekers allowance which was £83 every 2 weeks and I had bank statements to prove all these payments, I went down to an office on St Albans Road, Watford to sign a “new” contract, they explained a lot of legal sayings and to a naïve 21 year old who had one hand behind his back over a barrel there wasn’t a lot I could do in this situation faced with losing a car and + money I had to sign this, they removed a whole host of things from the original contract including adding MORE interest + charges and removing when I could return the car when you reach the half way amount of £4000 (see above), this was not actually explained to me as if I knew that I would of flagged this up and maybe not even had signed it.

So I “agreed” to pay £138 a month (from a £166 pm job seekers allowance) even when I had PPI attached to it and the inevitable missed payments happened when I couldn’t afford to keep up the monthly repayments, I got fed up with the whole situation as it was taking over my life when I was trying to be focused on getting another job as you would at aged 21 who shouldn’t have to had this burden on such a young persons shoulders I refused to keep on paying and returned the car which I thought was well within my rights to do so, I had enough, I paid well over the amount I should of paid (to my knowledge about £7,500 but this can be confirmed by bank statements) and I couldn’t doit anymore, I had other things to pay for and a life to live and I couldn’t deal with having all of this on me anymore, so Welcome Finance took the car back and decided they would then charge me extra money for that and to this day they are after me for £2,700 or so, I find this claim to be laughable and saddening especially what it has done to my credit report and the emotional stress of it all, I find it ridiculous that a company could try and take a young kid for a ride for all the money he had and the negligence of the company is just beyond absurd, the fact that I even seemed to have PPI in the first place makes this whole claim ridiculous.

I do not believe I have to pay the remaining balance, I have been caused a great deal of emotional stress from all of this and I even paid well over the amount I could afford to pay and to the point where I could just return the car back, I would of happily just left this but I am very angry and disappointed that they are pursuing me to the point of bailiffs if they don’t receive the full amount, when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, 5 years on they still prove me wrong. However the kind person of Empingham Limited “Chloe Waters” has sent me in the direction of lodging a Complaint with yourselves so I thank her for the help and sympathy I have received.

So I wish to lodge a complaint and an investigation into this and it’s practices towards me and I look forward to hearing from you soon.

When I get home I will attached the scan/photo of the original letter where it stated I had PPI included.

Kind Regards,
Adam Williams