sorry - another cahoot/santander flexi loan question

geefunk

Hi all, first post - and sorry it's a subject I know has come up before, but despite searching and reading I don't think I found a conclusion.

Like many, I had a £4000 flexi loan with cahoot, which went over to santander and also had a huge hike in interest rate - now up to 21%!

Was there a conclusion as to if it was fair, etc? Is there anything I can do? I pay £100 a month, but get charged £65 - it's still lurking at around £3700 despite paying it off for years now...

Any help/advice most appreciated

thanks

geefunk

......anyone?

paddyrg

Get your loan paperwork and see if there are terms covering what has happened - I think you'll find nobody responded overnight because they don't have access to the crucial agreement you signed!

You could talk to another lender, see if they will take on the debt at a better rate? 21% is high indeed, have you got a spotless credit history? Try ratesetter or zopa and you're looking at single digit rates if you have.

happy_bunny_2

I complained to Cahoot about the rate hikes (8% to 23%) then Santander and got told to poke off. Complaint just sent to the FOS.

Some other folk seem to have had success with FOS.

I had a similar complaint with my Marbles card and referred to FOS after bene told to poke off and got 4K in excessive interest returned and my APR reduced by 11%.

Complaint based on rate hikes after balance accrued, so I would complain to Santander if I were you and then the FOS when they reject it.

HTH

geefunk

Thanks guys - will check my paperwork, and get writing letters

CHR15

There is a member on here who has grabbed flexible loans by the horns, in his case I think it was Firstplus (the member is Halifax????)

The bad news is that the FOS were less than useful, along with everyone else so the Flexible Loan is just that...Flexible.
There was nothing to say it was going to track anything else, the rate was simply flexible so could have gone either way.
The reality was that is was only ever going to go one way, and that was never going to favour the customer.

The only realistic option is to get a settlement figure, get a proper (fixed rate) loan elsewhere and pay the thing off.

geefunk

CHR15 wrote: »

There is a member on here who has grabbed flexible loans by the horns, in his case I think it was Firstplus (the member is Halifax????)

The bad news is that the FOS were less than useful, along with everyone else so the Flexible Loan is just that...Flexible.
There was nothing to say it was going to track anything else, the rate was simply flexible so could have gone either way.
The reality was that is was only ever going to go one way, and that was never going to favour the customer.

The only realistic option is to get a settlement figure, get a proper (fixed rate) loan elsewhere and pay the thing off.

This what what I was worried about. My guess was that it was never really going to end well, I just had a faint glimmer of hope someone else had beaten them!

Ideally I would just like to get it paid off, but my credit rating isn't great, so just not too sure if another company will take it on. I'll chat with my bank, who I've been with for a long time - appeal to their human nature - wish me luck!

shanep

I too am in the same boat as everyone else that got stung by the Cahoot Santander take over.

I have a £6000 loan which I have had since 2002, I pay £120 and out of that £96 is interest. Of course its going to take me another 15 years to pay of at this rate with about £18000 of interest. I have borrowed in to the flexi loan a few times, and Santander said to me they are in no position to offer me a better deal, nor are they willing to reduce the rate, because of the pure nature of the loan, they mentioned to me they have no control over if for they way it was handled internally.

Surely there must be something I can do to complain to the FOS, I passed my loan to debt-line, who simply cant do anything about it either, Santander will simply not speak with them other than by fax. They have accepted my reduced payment and thats it, but they can not and will not reduce the interest, unless I don't pay them for 7 month and default on the lone, by which time it would have reached heights of another £1000, or more.

So far to day i believe I have paid £20,000 interest and still more to pay. Surely I could get this loan written off.

Any help would be great, and no I can not get another loan as my credit rating is like 177/1000

happy_bunny_2

The FOS have had my complaint for 6 weeks and I only have a letter saying they are looking into it so far. Will update you when they reply with their findings.

sledgefund

@happy_bunny Any news yet from the FOS? Just about to go down this route with Santander and I was wondering what sort of timescales FOS actually respond in...

Thanks

happy_bunny_2

Yes, I prompted the FOS after 8 weeks and they started looking into my complaint.

Within 4 weeks, I have £5K+ returned to my FL loan account and a small amount of compensation. If you want the details, PM me with what you intend to send to the FOS and I'll give you a few pointers based on my complaint.