unWELCOME suprise

mordenboy

Hi there

Was hoping i could get some advice.
I foolishly took out a personal loan with welcome finance as i needed some cash fast, and my credit was poor after struggling during my student years. This loan is due for its last payment in may this year, and I was obviously looking forward to seeing it off.

I was then suprised when i saw that on my experian credit report, that the debt still outstanding was 1666. I called welcome to discuss this and the lady I spoke to said that due to missed payments and phone calls I still owed 1900!! Even though my credit report shows that all payments have been made on time.

The lady said that to help see off this defacit I should increase my payments from 130 pm to 160 pm, I agreed.

I feel really uncomfortable with this situation, and having read many horror stories about these clowns, I just want rid off them.

My Credit history has improved since my student days, and is now pretty good, I know borrowing to settle current debts is not always a good idea, however, i have a loan from my bank (lloyds) available to me at about 18%, massively less than the loan shark like rates from welcome.

In this instance would it be a good idea as I just dont want to be associated with these cowboys any more.

Any advice would be great.

Thanks in advance

[Deleted User]

yes it would be a great idea,get welcome off your backs,in fact try and negotiate a full and final settlement you never know you may get a discount but dont hold your breath.

BenL

Did you miss any payments? Did they phone you to talk about the payments?

If the payments were taken correctly as per your contract and you upheld your part of the deal you should collate the evidence of bank statements etc and send copies.

You can probably get a statement from them of when they believe you to have missed the payments so you can tally them up.

mordenboy

Thankyou for response. I thought it was a good idea, but just wanted someone with more knowledge than me to confirm. Much appreciated Woodbine.

mordenboy

BenL, there were some payments missed, but only as they for some reason didn't collect their direct debit from my account, I never stopped them and there was always sufficient funds, so that puzzled me. I dont know if this is common?? They have called a few times (but nothing like the amount of times it would need to rack up those costs), I assured them it was their mistake, they obviously had other ideas !!!!

brians_daughter

i have had a loan with these as i used to have credit issues. The same happened to me, i had a seperate billing account and all DDs were fixed so every month i just sent the appropriate money to the account. They didnt take 3 months payments from my account and tried to charge me circa £300 for this. My credit report showed no missed payments etc so I wrote to head office and got a call back.. a few letter later they took the £300 off my account and i settled there and then. I owed around £800 on the loan (and the £300 on top if they were to be believed), they settled at £590 and took the fees off.


As i understand it welcome are in a pickle at the minute and arent doing new loans, just trying to get as much money in as possible through asking ppl can the settle in full - obviously you can use this to negotiate a lower settlement figure

mordenboy

thanks for that, i'll get my haggling head on. cant wait to be rid of them