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

lfese1

Hurtle wrote: »

Should we wait for our respective 8 weeks to be up though, or just launch straight away?

The ombudsman prefers that the firm is given a chance to handle the complaint and give them 8 weeks to do so. However, as soon as the 8 weeks are up you should go to the ombudsman immediately.

However, Santanders behaviour is very interesting. It looks to me like they have made some offers and have had 1 or 2 cases at the fos go against them which potentially sets a precedent. Not sure how they can defend any further cases with this precedent having been set. Nevertheless, they are clearly stalling whilst their legal team work out their position. so as soon as your 8 weeks are up do not hesitate to escalate to the fos.

They did reply to my original complaint within 2 days and have responded to a chaser I sent at the beginning of the week, although mine was clearly forwarded from someone else without removing some of the message like the subject mishap above.

Cell

I, too, received a cut and paste e-mail from them this afternoon.

lunch12345

oracleman wrote: »

I think Santy think most people will accept their offer.
They contacted me with an offer, I said thats not correct. I was firmly told thats the calculation take it or go to the FOS.

I made a post on this thread on how to do the calculation. basically you need the balance each month and the interest rate. It's a bit of a slog to work out, but should be within a few quid.
(See post No 417 9th Jan 8:33)

Don't trust the !!!!!!s, so work it out if you can

.
Hi Oracleman.
My update.
They offered me less than £ 500 early Dec. Asked for a calculation (they said go forth and multiply)
Went to FOS late Dec, FOS sent me a letter on 8th Feb saying they have written to Satan etc. No news as yet.
My feeling is that Sat are waiting for the results from the current FOS complaints before they give in and write everyone's loans off (bit of wishful thinking there!!)
Seriously though, they calculated my refund from 14 % even though initial rate 6.90 % and Satan have history of refunding calculating from 6 ish % so why not everyone?
My loan £ 5 K June 2006, dipped in a few times!! current balance about £ 3.3K
Keep the faith

oracleman

You have to be careful here as the FOS just ask Satan for the calculations and guess what they will say they are OK. You really need to submit your own figures.

Logman63

Hi everyone...and thanks for posting this! It kinda explains what I suspected all along about my old Cahoot loan!
Anyway, I had a Cahoot loan from about 2002 until July 2010, when I got so fed up with the huge amount of interest I was paying (even with overpayments by me!) that I paid it all off and closed my Cahoot account (they were really *rsey about it too!).
So, if I'm not mistaken here, I should be entitled to a refund of at least some of that crippling level of interest that they slapped onto the loan over the interim period - is that right?
Of course it would be nice to get something back in financial terms, but the fact that they're getting their come-uppance would be good enough for me - even if I wasn't entitled to much/anything.
Can someone advise me please? My original loan was for about £5,000 and it fluctuated between that and about £3,500 - as I recall!
Thanks very much!

oscar52

Looks like old complaints are being looked into as well.

I have already had a refund of just shy of 3K - I didnt question it at all, was quite happy given I wasnt really expecting a refund - no disrespect to the OP but when I sent the letter I thought it was a punt, based on a rumour.

I have just had a letter this morning offereing a further £500 due to an error.

Loan virtually cleared now - so wish to say thanks again to the OP for their post, and to those users that PMd me further info.

Cell

The plot thickens!!!

mousewife

Hi everyone, just want to post an update for you all.

Thanks to the great advice on this thread, back in December I was refunded around £2800 which was credited to my Cahoot loan account. With overpayments, I calculated that I'd be free of the loan later this year - result!

Fast forward to this morning. Out-of-the-blue I received a letter from Santander stating that they'd 'miscalculated' the original 'goodwill' amount and will now be crediting my loan account with another (almost) £900 which includes £50 by way of an 'apology'!

This now means that three more months and my loan will be paid off for good. This couldn't have come at a better time as mousehusband has been made redundant.

Hopefully some of you will have similar good news (the additional refund, not the redundancy!) :beer:

finley909

Sorry to hear about your husband's Job mousewife, I hope he find something soon!

Something has definitely happened recently to make Santander revise their offers, though I'm not sure how his will affect the more recent complaints that appear to have been put in hold.

I put my fomplaint in back in November and after a bout 2 weeks got a reply stating I would have my loan credited with 3K. After receiving the January and February statements with no credit I complained again. I got an apology for this and the 3K was credited shortly after.

However, the complaint responses I got were hastily written, dismissive and frankly read like template responses. I had a number of issues on top of the rate hike, namely the removal of the flexible part of the loan, which to my knowledge is a core part of the loan. All these letters were responded to very quickly and I never had to wait more than 4-5 days for a reply.

I didn't get any apology for any customer service !!!!-ups they made and they tried to use a section of the credit agreement that reals with variable interest rates to support their removal of the flexiblepart of the loan. I have to admit, I lost patience and saw this going nowhere and as I had a lot on my plate at the time, I kind of gave up persuing it any further.

One thing got me about their response with refund offer + they used my 'original interest rate' of 13% when it was in fact 11.5%, when I queried this I was told that it was a mistake in the letter and they had in fact calculated it at 11.5% - convenient, huh? I asked for evidence of their calculations and was told that although they did use a calculation, the refund was 'a gesture of goodwill' so there would be nothing to gain from me having these. Due to lack of patience, this is where I left it.

Fast forward to today, and I, like the previous two posters received a letter from Santander telling me there has been a discrepancy in their calculations and they will credit my account with almost over a grand plus £50 as comp for my inconvenience!

Thanks very much!

I've been keeping up to date with everyones progress here despite giving up myself, and it's clear this board is having some impact on their decisions.

I've noticed more and more people are putting SAR requests in to get their interest calculated. Is it a coincidence then that all of a sudden they've found discrepancies in their workings and firing out fresh refunds to older complaints? Methinks not.

I'd recommend evryone get their SARs in who haven't had a positive response. Those who have a had a refund and weren't required to sign a settlement agreement, get yours in too, Santander may have held back on your refunds too.

Good luck to all!

kenny_straw

Good grief, these latest developments are a surprise, hopefully they are 'getting their house in order' with all the previous claims before moving onto to the ones that are 'in limbo'....surely now they have to use the same settlement rules for everyone?