Loan agreement and hidden charge

MikeR71

Ok, I apologies in advance if this topic has been covered. I have not checked this side of the forum before. I have a query which I hope the experienced members can help me with.

I took a loan out in 1997 from HSBC (Midlands) to pay for my postgraduate study. I borrowed roughly £12000 and paid back in over 4 years a total of nearly £20000.

I had a call the other day from one of these claim companies telling me that I may have been missold the loan and that it is likely there were hidden charges in my loan. He then offered to consider my case. I asked how they knew I had a loan and whether they could tell me which bank the loan was from. He couldn't so I said I wasn't interested in whatever he was selling.

But it made me think whether my loan did include hidden charges that the papers didn't show. I have checked th paper work which I still have. There is nothing about any insurance payment plan that is obvious. So the question is, is it possible that they included charges in my loan that wasn't transparent? Is it worth getting one of these companies to consider my case?

Thanks

dilus

MikeR71 wrote: »

Ok, I apologies in advance if this topic has been covered. I have not checked this side of the forum before. I have a query which I hope the experienced members can help me with.

I took a loan out in 1997 from HSBC (Midlands) to pay for my postgraduate study. I borrowed roughly £12000 and paid back in over 4 years a total of nearly £20000.

I had a call the other day from one of these claim companies telling me that I may have been missold the loan and that it is likely there were hidden charges in my loan. He then offered to consider my case. I asked how they knew I had a loan and whether they could tell me which bank the loan was from. He couldn't so I said I wasn't interested in whatever he was selling.

But it made me think whether my loan did include hidden charges that the papers didn't show. I have checked th paper work which I still have. There is nothing about any insurance payment plan that is obvious. So the question is, is it possible that they included charges in my loan that wasn't transparent? Is it worth getting one of these companies to consider my case?

Thanks

Hi MikeR71,
Don't use a claim company, you can go about this much easier yourself.
You say you can't see any signs on the paperwork that might suggest you were paying PPI, yet paying £20k back on a £12k loan seems very steep to me especially as you only had it over 4 years.
Did you take it out over 4 years or did you pay it off early? The reason I ask is, if you paid it off early you may have been charged penalties!
If you didn't pay it off early I would think there are some extra charges there somewhere and the likely suspect could be PPI.
Having said that you say it was for Postgraduate Study, were you employed whilst doing this study? If not HSBC may not have added PPI to your loan because it may not have covered you! Most PPI only covered you in the event of sickness/loss of job or an event that made it difficult to meet your payments whilst in full time employment.
Without finding some mention of PPI/Insurance on the documents or a Policy connected to it or a mention of it on bank statements it's difficult to know if you were paying for PPI. You could ask the bank directly if this loan had PPI or you could submit a complaint and see what they come back with.
I am not an expert on here, just making a suggestion, some of the other more experienced guys and girls might be able to suggest a better approach, regards dilus

magpiecottage

In theory you could complain. However, a four year loan taken out in 1997 would have been repaid 10 years ago so I suspect no records exist - so it may be difficult to prove there was any PPI

dilus

magpiecottage wrote: »

In theory you could complain. However, a four year loan taken out in 1997 would have been repaid 10 years ago so I suspect no records exist - so it may be difficult to prove there was any PPI

Thanks magpiecottage, overlooked the date issue

MikeR71

Thanks guys. That was one of my queries. I took out the loan in 1999 (not 97, sorry) and only started paying back in 2002 when I started working. It took me toll 2006 to clear it and I didn't make any early payments.
I do have some records and some bank statements which I could check but I haven't seen any mention of PPI.

But in general, if you are being sold PPI, it should clearly state that on the agreement, right? Or do they hide it in the total amount payable back?

dunstonh

But in general, if you are being sold PPI, it should clearly state that on the agreement, right? Or do they hide it in the total amount payable back?

if it is paid as part of the loan then it should be on the agreement. If it is paid as a standalone amount (i.e. seperate direct debit from your bank account and not charged interest on) then it wont appear on the agreement. The standalone method is not widely used apart from mortgages. If they used the standalone PPI method then it actually reduces the chance of a complaint being successful as it eliminates the most common reason for a refund or PPI.