'First Plus Closes. Good and Bad News…' blog discussion 9 July 2008 at 2:20PM in Martin's blogs & appearances & MoneySavingExpert in the news 10 replies 6.4K views

Former_MSE_Lawrence

This is the discussion to link on the back of Martin's blog. Please read the blog first, as this discussion follows it.

Read Martin's 'First Plus Closes. Good and Bad News…' Blog.

Click reply to discuss below.

beaker141

Surely any praise towards Carol Vorderman for not renewing her contract now deserves to be recinded - sounds like she would have renewed if she could but it wasn't offered due to the closure of the brand !

max2002ad

Definitly some spinning on carol voderman's side.

ginalerd

I am Glad that First Plus (Barclays) have closed good ridence But have you seen the terrible thing Barclays Bank have come up with! To further the misery of people who live over the overdraft. They are now going to charge £22.00 called a reserve usage fee per 5 days we go over the agreed overdraft limit. AND charge £8.00 for failed transactions as well as guaranteed Transaction fee too of £8.00 and of course the interest you pay on your overdraft anyway ! If I am right then you could find yourself in a situation of paying £22.00 for 73 times a year (365 days divided by 5 days) £1606.00 plus the failed and guaranteed transaction fees as well as your overdraft interest who do they think they are kidding And as a Barclays customer I have to opt out of this as it will be applied automatically to current accounts
I complained to Barclays last night that this was targeted at people who are about to go on holidays during July Aug so will be away whilst this is applied to their accounts and may go over their overdraft whilst on holiday and get a huge shock on their return for something they had to opt out off .Barclays said for peolple like me it wouldn,t be a problem as I have a plus balance in my accounts ! but what about those who are unable to do this and find themselves in difficult situations especially in the current credit climate .I would like to say shame on Barclays Bank and think that this is only the tip of the Iceburg before all banks sign up to this overdraft Reserve rip off one hell of an APR I think !!

catinthehat1

We are in the process of trying to reclaim PPI, however Firstplus have written to us twice saying that they are still investigating and will get back to us - Do you think they may be trying to fob us off? Should we send them a second letter?
Secondly, we want to get rid of this debt ASAP - how can we find out if we pay £100 more per month that we will not be penalized for paying the debt early?

Paul_Herring

http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/news/Carol-Vorderman-faced-90-Countdown-pay-cut/article-239085-detail/article.html

More bad news for Carol - it seems she either had to take a pay cut taking her salary to only £120K for 40 days work a year, or leave.

My heart bleeds.

lynz412

I've had a complaint regarding PPI in with the Financial Ombudsman since Feb and this has still not been asigned to an assossor. Our loan with Barclays First Plus is still running. What should i do. Will the ombudsman still look at it if they are closing their doors? I'm panicking now.

ellsjew

I have read recently with interest the comments with regards to the newly formed Barclays First Plus, following the increase rate increases over the last couple of years they have continued to increase the rate of my secured loan due to market conditions, have following a recent call then complaint to them in writing they say that the reduced interest rates will not be passed onto clients as they do not follow the bank of england base rate.

Is there any government regulation here ? how can they increase because this is what the market dictates but not decrease at the same time ? has anybody had any joy with getting a revised reduced interest rate on their secured loan with this company.

I have also contacted the financial ombudsman with regards to this

shafted_fpc

This one seemed to die a death
now that concerns are raising re the Barclays Firstplus again and thier Fraudulant ways well maybe

tebberen1

Hi I would love the advice of seasonsed MM Tipsters.

We stupidly took out a large First Plus loan a few years ago without PPI. Realise now they are Barclays, but no one advised us of that- all paperwork still say's First Plus only.

I am worried sick, as we are working on coming out of debt, but it appears that our APR is monthly, not yearly-I will need to double check the original documents.

How can I switch from this, when we are trying to re-build our credit rating- should we try and switch, or would it be impossible?

We are working with CAP, an independant advisory service to freeze all interest on our unsecured loans, could this be done with a secured one such as this? (First meeting with them is next month).

Some sound advice would be most appreciated. We have certainly learnt lessons with this shower.

lrboylin

I would like to add my dealings with First Plus.
I took out a loan of around £20,000, over 5 years with them and with the promise of just over £4,400 cashback on the loan insurance.
Finished paying in Aug 2011 (thank god!!) and after reading horror stories on places like here and elsewhere on the web, i thought i would never see that money or we would have a huge sum to pay at the end.:eek:
So once a month i would ring up and have a balance check, 3 months before it was due to end and keep questioning about the cash back just to confirm.
Well my worries were over nothing, approx 3-4 weeks after my last payment we received a cheque for just over £4,400:beer::j:T
Once this had cleared I put a claim in for PPI and 4-6 weeks after (they did keep me informed a couple of times on the progress) they sent me a settlement figure for a £1,000 MORE than we requested :beer::j
So all in all my dealings with First Plus were first class and I had no issues, yes there interest rates are higher and riskier than other loans but it tells you this in the small print.
The reason for my success, I read the small print on big purchases like this, so we made sure we kept up with payments etc...