Wentworth Direct Finance/Ralph Marlon Ltd

skintbear48

I recently applied for a loan of £6,000 repayable over 5 years(60 months), Kept on getting emails & texts offering me 'pay-day' loans. Filled out a form online & was contacted by Wentworth Direct Finance (who are a broker, as I later found out),and told that loan had been successful and told what the repayments were - which seemed fine to me.After reading several bad reviews about them decided to call, after several frustrating phone calls (kept waiting for 20-40 minutes before getting through), was told that my application was a very good one that met with their criteria & they had placed me with four different lenders & once I had paid the brokers fee of £69.00, the lenders would be in touch with me by post. This seemed fair & genuine to me so I put down the negative reviews to people who had been refused loans and it was sour grapes(some of the reviews were positive stating that loans had been arranged through Wentworth).The fee was taken from my account on Thursday 23rd June, on Monday 27th June received a letter from Wentworth advising me that the lenders would be in touch by post shortly and that they would probably need proof of income & a utility bill. Came home today(Wednesday 29th June) to find a letter from a company called 'Capital First Loans UK' in association with 'Ralph Marlon Ltd(Personal Loans)', included is a form asking for various details(works phone number, bank details etc), and yes they wanted a recent payslip & utility bill as Wentworth said they would. However alarm bells started ringing when I re-read the letter from them which states "Please complete the additional information form and return it to the Leeds office above along with copies of the relevant documents that are requested. We'll then process your loan details and submit them to our lenders who will be contacting you shortly". Which surely means that these people are brokers, doesn't it ? Which is what I was told that Wentworth are. So I decided to look up this second company online and discovered that they are a sister company of Wentworth and the whole thing is nothing but a scam, unfortunately one which has so-far cost me £69.00. I won't be pursuing the loan with these cowboys, and I certainly won't be sending them the form which gives them all my details.

fozmcfc

As you have discovered just a con, hopefully by now you will also have discovered if you write to them, you can get your fee back, minus a £5 admin charge.

Send it recorded delivery and keep it short and sweet, don't bother with call them names etc.. just something along the lines of as per your T&C's I request a refund minus the admin fee, including any reference numbers.

If you haven't already discovered them, do a forum search and you'll see you are by far, far from alone.

ripoffslayer

Yep, irritating, I have had a similar thing recently after using credit expert loans comparison as companies have sent through agreements which I haven't actually asked for although think I've avoided any charges so far...

Is it correct that these brokers withdraw money with no written agreement? If so I fail to see why that hasn't been addressed by the OFT as I would think it extremely easy for these people to word a conversation towards one of these verbal contracts.

welshhuni

Hi I did the same thing on the same day as you with a different company (loansgogo). It was only today when I had another phone call from a different broker trying to get me to part with £40 that a wondered what was going on. I then check the reviews for loansgogo and they were awful. Have phoned them and they have sent me to address to apply for a refund, if this doesn't happen i will speak to the bank/visa about getting it credited, i didn't know I could do that, so thank you.

To be honest I can't believe how stupid Ive been, I think I need to tackle my debts in another way.

CHR15

DevereuxDesignsUK wrote: »

The best option is speak to your bank if you need cash or advice, they are there to help and offer a solution.

I'm not sure that is completely accurate.
The banks of course, are a good place if you need cash, but they are a business out to sell you a product.

We see no end of posts where people have come out of the banks doors with a huge loan they later regret. Chants of irresponsible lending and bullying are common.
We had one only this week with the poster claiming she was sobbing and crying, but the bank employee FORCED her to sign for a huge loan.

For Advice on dealing with debt, go to a debt charity (CCCS, Payplan) or a standard IFA. They will give you the advice you seek without trying to sell you a product.

Banks are not your friends, they are there to make a healthy profit by swapping some of their money now, for much more of yours later on... nothing else.