Welcome finance lost my settlement cheque for £175, now they want £2800!

dust_hull

Hi, Ive just been reading the forums about welcome finance. Similar experience myself & I was looking for advice or opinions. Will keep this short & to the point.

In May 2008 I bought a house with my partner & we decided to get a loan to consolidate all of our debts. My main debt was with Welcome Finance! I got a settlement fee of £4500, a bit steep but this was what I expected. I went into the office in person to pay this by cheque. The advisor I had always dealt with advised me to do something slightly different.
She said why dont I just pay £4000 now and then she will get me a settlement on the remaining £500. Seemed a good idea at the time so said okay then. This all went fine and the settlement was just £175 so it saved me £325, always good when you are buying a house & need any spare cash. So, I went back & payed the cheque for £175.
A few weeks passed & we realised they had not taken the money so I contacted them & was told not to worry, the cheque will be somewhere and its all fine. A few more days passed & I called and was again told not to worry.
Anyway, I called a few more times and said, listen, if the cheque is lost, that is fine, I will write you a new one minus the fee it will cost me to cancel the original. Was then told they think they have found it, no probs.
I called & offered to write a new one on 3 occassions but was told repeatedly it wasn't a major issue. In the end, we just forgot about it to be honest.

Then, out of the blue in April this year I recieved a call from Welcome Finance, a lady claiming to be my new account advisor said she was calling about my outstanding debt. Initialy this annoyed me then I softened & said, listen, I will write you a another cheque for the £175. She then informed me I owed £1500+ ! ! !

Shell shocked I explained the situation about my previous attempts. I told her to speak to my orig advisor about this. She said that teh orig advisor had left the company so that was not possible. I was told she would look into it as its possible the cheque could still be somewhere etc...
She contacted me again a week later & said, sorry they have not found it, do I have proof!

I decided to turn up at the office & I got to speak to the new advisor at begining of July after more calls. I went through in detail & gave her copies of my phone bills & names of the people I had spoken to to prove my attempts from 2008 to sort this. She admitted & saw my point that it was unlikely someone would hand over £4000 then try & duck out of paying £175! After an hour & a word with the manager she told me that it would be wavered and I agreed that I would still pay the £175. She said I could pay tehre & then if I liked but I declined saying I wanted it in writing first. She said it would take 6-8 weeks to sort via head office, Again, she admitted they were wrong and apologised & told me to ignore any letters... Phew, all sorted, nice one!

This brings me to now. After hearing nothing I tried on several occasions to speak to my advisor who was always unav or on another call. Eventually, because she answered the phone I got to speak to her. I was shocked to hear her say that as I had no proof for paying the £175 cheque then what could she do? She asked if I had proof of delivery, Nope, I came into the branch myself! I went ballistic. She said the outstanding balance was now £2800, an increase of over a thousand in the 6-8 weeks I waited for her to sort it out! But, she could get me a settlement on the £2800, gee, thanks!

I spoke to the manager who again agreed with what I was saying, he then offered to contact complaints at head office to put forward a short settlement (i think thats what he called it) for the orig £175. This I am told will take 10 days and has no guarantee of been accepted. In the meantime their callcentre are calling my previous address despite them knowing & been told that I have moved house, hence the settlement in the firstplace!

I am livid & stressed, does anybody out there have any suggestions as to what I should do next?

How can £175 turn into £2800 when THEY lost my cheque!

abinanthanb

dust_hull wrote: »

Hi, Ive just been reading the forums about welcome finance. Similar experience myself & I was looking for advice or opinions. Will keep this short & to the point.

In May 2008 I bought a house with my partner & we decided to get a loan to consolidate all of our debts. My main debt was with Welcome Finance! I got a settlement fee of £4500, a bit steep but this was what I expected. I went into the office in person to pay this by cheque. The advisor I had always dealt with advised me to do something slightly different.
She said why dont I just pay £4000 now and then she will get me a settlement on the remaining £500. Seemed a good idea at the time so said okay then. This all went fine and the settlement was just £175 so it saved me £325, always good when you are buying a house & need any spare cash. So, I went back & payed the cheque for £175.
A few weeks passed & we realised they had not taken the money so I contacted them & was told not to worry, the cheque will be somewhere and its all fine. A few more days passed & I called and was again told not to worry.
Anyway, I called a few more times and said, listen, if the cheque is lost, that is fine, I will write you a new one minus the fee it will cost me to cancel the original. Was then told they think they have found it, no probs.
I called & offered to write a new one on 3 occassions but was told repeatedly it wasn't a major issue. In the end, we just forgot about it to be honest.

Then, out of the blue in April this year I recieved a call from Welcome Finance, a lady claiming to be my new account advisor said she was calling about my outstanding debt. Initialy this annoyed me then I softened & said, listen, I will write you a another cheque for the £175. She then informed me I owed £1500+ ! ! !

Shell shocked I explained the situation about my previous attempts. I told her to speak to my orig advisor about this. She said that teh orig advisor had left the company so that was not possible. I was told she would look into it as its possible the cheque could still be somewhere etc...
She contacted me again a week later & said, sorry they have not found it, do I have proof!

I decided to turn up at the office & I got to speak to the new advisor at begining of July after more calls. I went through in detail & gave her copies of my phone bills & names of the people I had spoken to to prove my attempts from 2008 to sort this. She admitted & saw my point that it was unlikely someone would hand over £4000 then try & duck out of paying £175! After an hour & a word with the manager she told me that it would be wavered and I agreed that I would still pay the £175. She said I could pay tehre & then if I liked but I declined saying I wanted it in writing first. She said it would take 6-8 weeks to sort via head office, Again, she admitted they were wrong and apologised & told me to ignore any letters... Phew, all sorted, nice one!

This brings me to now. After hearing nothing I tried on several occasions to speak to my advisor who was always unav or on another call. Eventually, because she answered the phone I got to speak to her. I was shocked to hear her say that as I had no proof for paying the £175 cheque then what could she do? She asked if I had proof of delivery, Nope, I came into the branch myself! I went ballistic. She said the outstanding balance was now £2800, an increase of over a thousand in the 6-8 weeks I waited for her to sort it out! But, she could get me a settlement on the £2800, gee, thanks!

I spoke to the manager who again agreed with what I was saying, he then offered to contact complaints at head office to put forward a short settlement (i think thats what he called it) for the orig £175. This I am told will take 10 days and has no guarantee of been accepted. In the meantime their callcentre are calling my previous address despite them knowing & been told that I have moved house, hence the settlement in the firstplace!

I am livid & stressed, does anybody out there have any suggestions as to what I should do next?

How can £175 turn into £2800 when THEY lost my cheque!

Isn't there a counter leaf in your cheque book where you can enter details of to whom and what amount the check was written with? It can be used a s a proof.

Good luck and hope it will be sorted out.

sandraroffey

pity you didnt ask for a receipt????

Essex_Maid

Go to the citizens advice asap - or if you have legal helpline on your house insurance call them. Get legal advice.

LeeSouthEast

Indeed - surely the cheque stub will be all the proof you need, coupled with the telephone calls (recorded by them perhaps?).

dust_hull

Thanks for all your replies so far. I forgot to mention the cheque stub. Yep, I took the stub with me when I went to the offices. I had that and it was the next cheque in the book to the £4000 one. I also gave them copies of mobile phone records which proved I had had conversations with members of staff (all of whom I noted the names of). She asked me to provide sort codes for the bank account the came from (joint account) which I was unwilling to do as I simply do not trust them to not start taking money from the account.

As for a reciept, god knows I wish I got one. I got a reciept for the £4000. Had they not made the stupid suggestion to only pay part of the settlement I would be able to get on with my debt free life which I worked damned hard to achieve without this hanging over me.

dust_hull

They also told me they had all the calls logged but not recorded (convenient!). They told me that the cheque stub was no good as I could have just written it out. Despite this both the advisor & manager both agreed it was unlikely that I was making up this missing cheque. All in all with the payments I had already made for the previous 3 years and the £4000 I gave them they have had in excess of £8000. I only borrowed £4200 to start with!

dust_hull

Think I typed this reply in but it dissapeared?!
I also presented cheque stub but that did not swing any favour. They then asked for details of the account the cheque came from. Was not willing as it was joint account, none of their business & I don't trust them to not take money from it if they get the oppurtunity.
Got a reciept for the £4000 but alas I didn't for the £175 which I am hugely gutted about. They hae a log of calls made but not recorded (convenient!)

Thanks for all your replies so far, going to citezens advice tmrow.

iolanthe07

pity you didnt ask for a receipt????

Not necessary under the Cheques Act 1957. Just ask your bank for a copy of the cleared cheque (the counterfoil will indicate the cheque number). They will do this within a day or two. They may charge a fee iir about £3.00.

PNPSUKNET

log a formal complaint with the fso

dust_hull

iolanthe07 wrote: »

pity you didnt ask for a receipt????

Not necessary under the Cheques Act 1957. Just ask your bank for a copy of the cleared cheque (the counterfoil will indicate the cheque number). They will do this within a day or two. They may charge a fee iir about £3.00.

The unfortunate mess of this whole situation is that they never banked the cheque for £175. As in my orig post, I offered repeatedly to re-write a fresh cheque but was told it wasn't a problem & not to worry about it. It will turn up etc... When all is said and done, they were neglegent and lost my cheque and are now basicaly accusing me of not writing it in the first place which is rubbish.
Logic tells them that if One week I give them £4000 then I would not try to avoid paying the paltry sum of £175 to finaly sever ties with them.