Santander are now refunding interest payments on Cahoot flexible loan's

byebyedebt

In these days of e banking, I'm pretty sure your little payments cost nothing to process.

alexjonsson

Hi, I started reading this thread with optimism. I got to the end of the second page before jumping to the last few pages. It seems that at present people are not being successful with their claims - can anyone confirm.

I had a Cahoot flexible loan of £3000 between 2006 and 2009. The rate crept from about 8.9% to 15.9% over that time. In 2009 the loan was paid off and they said that as they were no longer offering that product they were closing my account.

So I don't have any account details/statements, details of interest charges etc. I just know my name (I think) and where I live.

Is it worth making a claim?

DJTASK

Just got my reply from office of fair trading.

Whilst it was quicker that FOS, the reply was basically "we can't be bothered to investigate". Off course, this took a couple of pages to explain, and argued that they want to concentrated their efforts on cases that can make a difference to consumers.

Office of Fair Trading = Office of Could Not Give A Damn

byebyedebt

Yes it is worth making a claim.

Denza

DJTASK wrote: »

Just got my reply from office of fair trading.

Whilst it was quicker that FOS, the reply was basically "we can't be bothered to investigate". Off course, this took a couple of pages to explain, and argued that they want to concentrated their efforts on cases that can make a difference to consumers.

Office of Fair Trading = Office of Could Not Give A Damn

Sounds familiar; I believe that their ideal would be that consumers take civil action on their own behalf and then, if successful, they would be prepared to represent consumers at large.

So they are prepared to take the glory but not do any of the actual leg-work.

Having said that I have managed to raise my concerns to the Head of ERC by rejecting their initial and wholly unsatisfactory responses in no uncertain terms. I'll update the thread with any meaningful developments. In the last salvo I felt obliged to mention that Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations are given headline status in their own "Prioritisation Principals" and they are mandated to consider them, i.e. consider the merits of them as opposed to consider the mere fact that they have been raised.

As per previous, the more concerns they receive the more chance of attention.

Good luck to all.

Sabbydancer

Hi
I've been following this thread for some time and its really helped me so far. I just wanted to say thank you to everyone for sharing all your thoughts and ideas.

I've complained to Santander and got the standard rejection letter so I proceeded to the Ombudsman and got what appears to be a fairly standard responce from adjudicator. I've asked for this to be referred to an ombudsman as advised on here.

I'm going to assume that I will get a similar reposnse from them.

So I gues my question is what do you recommend my next move should be. Should I contact the Office of Fair trading? Sounds like they are not interested based on a few earlier posts.

If we decide to take combined legal action I would be happy to get involved.

Denza

Sabbydancer wrote: »

Should I contact the Office of Fair trading?

Yes and these are the two most prominent reasons why:

- It adds to the volume of complaints to the OFT which increases the chance the overarching case will get prioritised
- It demonstrates that you have explored all available options for consumer resolution (should you proceed to the courts in advance of any OFT ruling)

As a bonus it also adds to the workload of Santander assuming you notify them of your action which I would also strongly advocate.

Sabbydancer wrote: »

If we decide to take combined legal action I would be happy to get involved.

Many have expressed similar sentiments, myself amongst them.

Ideally - from a time and resources perspective - a trial case through the small claims court would be a good starting point however we need a case in which the settlement figure is below £5,000.

Unfortunately this cannot include cases which comprise a higher settlement figure but where the claimant would be willing to settle for £5,000 as this is not how the small courts operate.

Mine is £10,000+ so this rules me out.

Any takers? You can assume that many will chip in to spread the costs and any preparation work, I will gladly assist with both.

I was quoted a projected resolution time for a class action in the region of three to five years from origination. At best. Hence I feel that in the absence of a small court claim an individual test case would be the next best option.

If/when I can secure adequate terms with representation I fully intend to invoke legal action, no question, though I don't have the capacity to undertake this at the moment and as mentioned see the small claims as the best option at this time.

Cheers.

QPR277

Hi just had my letter from Ombudsman saying "Cahoot was not obliged to continue to provide the flexible loan to you at a lower rate of interest and was entitled to increase the rate" also goes for over 3 pages about the profitabilty of Santander??!!

Not happy at all like the rest of you on here,so what's the next step i've already email FOS saying i would like them to look at it agin but don't expect much from that.Is it the OFT or small claims court?

Smashbutt

If only there was a prominent money saving expert type guy, who could take on this travesty of miss-justice on our behalf?

A person who was in the media a lot and could shame Santander into doing something positive or embarrass the FOS??

Anyone know anybody??:)

kenny_straw

If only there was a prominent money saving expert type guy, who could take on this travesty of miss-justice on our behalf?

Quite right.......MSE were happy to shout from the rooftops when Santander were paying out hand over fist.
They have been contacted several times about this and to my knowledge have offered damn all to help. This is exactly the sort of story you would expect would be of interest. Maybe its not the voice of the consumers after all.