A&L personal loan rip off

TWOQUIDKEV

Hi Guys

Just to let you know about my experiences with A&L, we needed a loan to finance a new car (£8500) so checked out Martin's recommendations as per usual for the savvy moneysaver.

anyway the best buy table shows APR 7.9%, and the link takes you to a A&L website with 7.9% showing in big letters, type in the loan ammount and legnth of loan and it spits out £170/month for 60 months. click on the apply online button spend ages filling in the usual bumph, and 48 hours later get the docs through with an APR of 8.9% and £174/month repayments.

which is different to what I filled out online.

On a footnote:

In the smallprint with the agreement for the A&L loan was the early repayment costs which to me sound extreme. as follows:

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after 1/4 loan period (15 months) you have to pay 79.4% of the original loan amount (£8500) = £6749 plus 15 amounts of £174 = total £9368.81

after 1/2 loan period (30 months) you have to pay 56% of the original loan amount (£8500) = £4735 plus 30 amounts of £174 = total £9973.44


after 3/4 loan period (45 months) you have to pay 29.3% of the original loan amount (£8500) = £2493 plus 45 amounts of £174 = total £10351.38

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total repayable over the 60 months £10477.20

seems a little steep to me, I checked Tesco's terms out and they only charge 2 months interest to cancel early.

is it me or what?:(

olly300

The loan rate I see on A&L's website is 8.9% with the words "APR Typical" under it.

Wutang_2

TWOQUIDKEV wrote: »

is it me or what?:(

Its you flower - top rate, martin is a journalist and if you don't want high early repayment charges (which you will be aware of beforehand), then apply eslewhere.

TWOQUIDKEV

olly300 wrote: »

The loan rate I see on A&L's website is 8.9% with the words "APR Typical" under it.

It's not if you follow the link from the "best personal loan's" off Martin's website?

What got me mad was that when going through the online application process nowhere did it say that due to my circumstances the APR would be 8.9%.

How does this work now I've recieved the agreement to sign but havn't signed so can I just ignore this and apply elsewhere?

Grovester_2

First off the APR may state 8.9 but look at the actual amount you need to repay. The APR is calculated in such a way that some companies show 8.9 but have a lower repayment.

For example go to a comparison site and enter the details. Some results come back at the same APR but different monthly payments by a couple of pounds.

Also the early settlement looks normal they are charging about 60 days interest, which I believe is the maximum they can charge.

After paying 15 installments you have paid £2610. The balance of the loan is about 6.7k and there are 60 days interest added to that for settling early. There are no high early repayment fee's here.

ILW

Cannot see where the "rip off" is.

olly300

TWOQUIDKEV wrote: »

It's not if you follow the link from the "best personal loan's" off Martin's website?

The link is out of date. So are a lot of other links, linking to this APR as A&L updated their website about 2 weeks ago.

TWOQUIDKEV wrote: »

What got me mad was that when going through the online application process nowhere did it say that due to my circumstances the APR would be 8.9%.

The only companies who will tell you your actual APR on an online application do all their processing online. A&L don't do this.

TWOQUIDKEV wrote: »

How does this work now I've recieved the agreement to sign but havn't signed so can I just ignore this and apply elsewhere?

You can, just remember that every time you apply for a loan you will be credit checked and the actual APR you are given won't show up until after that occurs as the company needs to see if you how much a lending risk you are.