Northern rock loan over £25,000

jrangutang

I'm a NRAM Together fool with 30K unsecured loan.

I have just been reading some of this thread with interest (No pun intended) and think NRAM / FOS are passing this off and ducking away from responsibilities as they know eventually they may have to wipe the loans over 25K off, repay the interest of the term and additionally compensate borrowers.

I am no lawyer but it seems to me that everyone over 25K should not be exempt from redress or compensation, this is unfair, unjust and wrong, the people over 25K are the most deceived and these loans are essentially moribund and/were illegally maintained and drawn up in the first place.

1) Crowd fund a GOOD moral lawyer to battle for us against NRAM for the settlement as outlined above as it will only take one winning case and then we will all win based on the same circumstances.

2) Maybe create and all sign an HM e-petition?

Chrisb80

*** 2nd FOS Update ***

I have just had my 2nd response back from the FOS as follows:

Dear Mr and Mrs ******

your complaint about Northern Rock (Asset Management) plc (trading as NRAM)

I am writing to set out my assessment of your complaint following your email dated 8 May 2013.

In your email you raised seven points you feel I did not adequately investigate in my initial assessment dated 3 May 2013.


My response is as follows:

• A number of the protections afforded to you by the Consumer Credit Act 1974 (CCA) are included as part of your current loan as they are written into the contract. These protections, listed under the ‘Key Information’ do form part of the contract. These include the ability to pay off the loan early and to be served with a default notice before any court proceeding take place. While these are important protections that are still covered by your unregulated loan, I appreciate there may have been other protections under the Act which were important to you when you took it out in 2005. If you let me know what these were I will be happy to investigate if they are also covered under your unregulated loan.

• The contract is still valid because it was entered into by both parties in good faith. While it has come to light that the loan is not regulated, this has not affected the fact that you had the benefit the funds, nor has it affected your ability to repay the loan in its original timescale.

• The Financial Conduct Authority sets out eleven high level principles that all financial business, including NRAM, are obliged to follow. This includes that ‘a firm must pay due regard to the information needs of its clients, and communicate information to them in a way which is clear, fair and not misleading’. I think it is clear that NRAM did not act in line with this principle when it sent your loan agreement – it was misleading. We are not saying NRAM did not make a mistake, nor denying that the error has caused confusion.

• The loan incorrectly stated it was regulated, but in order to for me to uphold your complaint I would need to prove that a financial loss had been made, which at this stage , I do not feel has been evidenced.

• I accept that NRAM mistakenly said your loan was regulated by the CCA. Generally, the remedy for misrepresentation is to look at what the affected party would have done differently if they had been had been given the correct information. I am inclined to agree that you may have acted differently if you had known from the outset that the loan was not regulated. If I am to assume that you would have taken out £25,000 or less, rather than £27,*** I would be able to consider that you may have acted differently. In order to demonstrate this I would need to see evidence that you had the extra £2,*** available to you in a bank account on the date the loan was taken out, and for a sustained period afterwards. I would also need to know what the purpose of all of the borrowing was and evidence what you used the funds for.

• I am sorry if you do not agree with our approach, I hope in addressing your points I have made our position clearer.

For the reasons outlined above I have to tell you that I am unable to recommend that your complaint should be upheld. I appreciate that this is likely to come as a disappointment to you. I know that this is not the outcome you were hoping for. But I hope that my explanation has been helpful in setting out clearly why I have taken this view.

So, the problem that I have is that I have just contacted my bank and apparently records only go back 6 years so I cannot prove I had savings at the time (which I did). The FOS must be aware of general banking rules?

I will be responding to the FOS as I'm still left with a loan contract that is wrong and I still do not know how this is to be rectified moving forward.

NRAM/FOS still have not told me what protections I am now not entitled to with this unregulated loan contract. They want me to demonstrate which ones I'm missing/concerned about - surely this is wrong. NRAM have c0cked up, I want them to do the work!

The FOS have at least admitted that NRAM have made a mistake but that no action will be taken - is this right/fair?

Anyway, this is still very fresh so I will take the time to digest the above and reply back again in due course. Just thought I would share with everyone here....

tinystar2001

The whole thing is absolutely disgusting! While we may not be able to show we have suffered a financial loss, I doubt those in the under 25k category could either, but there's no question that this is what they deserve. I am just about to refer my complaint to the FOS as I took out 23k, but, and I can only assume this is the reason, as NRAM have not told me anything, I have not been offered redress as I was offered 30k. I can't help but think mine is a bit of a tricky one for them because if they agree to my loan being regulated, it may well put them in a weaker position with regards to all those over 25k. I certainly hope that is the case! I can't believe the response people are getting from the FOS. If I had to prove I had savings all those years ago, I couldn't do it, because I didn't have them, but then I would not have taken out the mortgage if they'd told me it was unregulated, so I don't see how that can be used as an excuse by them.

Fizzy_Fish

Hmmm, the financial loss thing is a tricky one. The most obvious aspect is that we have not received the redress paid to others with loans under £25k, though that may not be enough.
Any other thoughts anyone?

Annoying that we should have to prove this, since those with sub-£25k loans didn't have to...

I also can't believe that the FOS accept that NRAM have done wrong, but still put the onus on us to say what we think we might be missing fom the contract, rather than on NRAM to provide clarity on what they consider the agreement to be. I will certainly be asking for this information to be provided to me in detail - in fact, I think NRAM should go through the entire CCA act and confirm which parts they consider are/aren't included. I do however reserve the right not to accept this, but it will help with our assessment of the situation.

And as for the decision re whether I would have take out an unregulated loan - I have never taken out unregulated credit with anyone else, so I certainly would not have done so (knowingly) in this case. Why is their default stance that we would have done so anyway, with the onus then being on us to prove otherwise??

Chrisb80 - in your case do you have any hard copy bank statements from around that time? For example I happened to find some of ours in with the mortgage application paperwork, I think they were used for proof of earnings.

This response has made it clearer than ever who the FOS are in bed with...

Chrisb80

I'm pretty sure that any hard copies would have been shredded, especially as it would have been an ISA account or similar. Having given it some thought I think I (we) had to prove to NRAM at the time that we had a savings account in place as I took out interest only payment option. With any luck NRAM may actually have the only proof I need!!

I think this whole situation is really disgusting. I've always said in other posts that's its never been about the financial redress, more about the clarity of my incorrect loan contract and NRAM being held responsible for thier actions. The FOS have certainly made thier position clear.

I'm thinking about contacting Watchdog and handing over my files, what do we have to lose? The whole FOS has really left me feeling deflated, especially as I wrongly considered that they would be there to help us and provide an unbiased view. NRAM are being allowed to get away with some serious failings in the way they have conducted business (again) and the systems in place to protect us are turning a blind eye!

ajm173

Well, we received the same first response from the FOS.

Since this letter we have sent/received the following e-mails / letters:

1)

Dear DavidRogers,
We write with reference toyour letter (dated 23rd May 2013), following this letter we wish toask the FOS to review our case for the reasons set out below.
1. We believe that NRAM should be heldaccountable, by means of providing us with redress, for the various mistakes in ourpaperwork (NRAM have admitted to morethan one mistake in our contract / documents in a previous letter tous, which was sent to you with our initial complaint) Our loan agreement is a Legally Binding document, in whichthere should be no errors. Weexplained that we therefore feel that we are victims of fraud, as this product sold to us in 2007 included claims that wereuntrue and misleading. Definition of Fraud from the Oxford English Dictionary “wrongful deception intended to result infinancial gain” We are sure you will respond stating that NRAM were unawareof this error and therefore did not intened to gain financially from this, howeverthis cannot be proven. The same can be said about the assumption that you havemade in our response letter whereby you state “I think it is unlikely that it would have made any difference to yourdecision to take out the loan if NRAM had set out the correct position” Weare furious that you have the right to make that statement about us – you donot know us and therefore have no way of knowing that it would not haveinfluenced a change in our decision to take out the loan had we have been madeaware that the loan was not in fact covered by the Act.
In your response to us,you have not addressed this issue. In order for us to make sense of yourdecision we would like you to explain to us, in writing, how NRAM are allowedto make mistakes on this scale and exactly what sanctions they will be facingif not providing redress to the customers affected by their errors.

2. We also complained that in our response letter from NRAM it states that "there is noneed for you to sign a new agreement. We are in the process of preparingrevised post-contractual documentation" surely if we entered into a Legally Binding contract in the first place that requiredour signatures then any changes tothis agreement would indeed, have to be first agreed to by us the customer andthen signed?
Againwe request that you explain, in writing, how legally NRAM is able to makechanges to our documentation / contract without us agreeing to these changes?


3. Written in our Legally Binding contract from NRAM italso states:
"The consumer credit act 1974 lays down certainrequirements for your protection, which should have been complied with whenthis agreement was made. If they werenot, we cannot enforce the agreement against you without a court order.”

Can you please explain to us inwriting why this was not complied with when this contract was originally drawnup and exactly how it can now be enforced now without a court order?


4. In your response tous you state “I do not consider the factthat the loan agreement states the loan is regulated means that it actually is”

Wewould like you to explain this sentence in writing, as we are truly mystifiedby this. How can “This loan is covered by the 1974 CCA” written in BOLD and atseveral points throughout our LEGALLY BINDING contract and subsequentpaperwork not actually lead us to believe that it is in fact covered? Doesyour above sentence not actually reinforce that fact that as customers we havebeen mislead? Can you explain how this has affected your decision directly?

We trust that each of the four points above willbe responded to, in writing, providing us with detailed explanations to clarifyand justify your decision on our individual case. Please reassure us that outof the thousand of NRAM customers currently making similar complaints, that ourcomplaint is actually being taken seriously, investigated fairly and looked aton its own merits.

2)

David,

should it not now be passed on to someone else as you have already reviewed our complaint and made your decision?

3)

I will need to asses what you have said before I decide whether to respond to you myself or put the case to an ombudsman. This is our procedure.

I will be in further contact with you as soon as possible.

4)

David,

As stated on the FOS website we have the right to "appeal" by asking for a review and a final decision by an ombudsman if we do not agree with the initial decision.

I can see from your electronic signature that you are an adjudicator we therefore would like our complaint, in full (all correspondence to and from us and yourself and us and NRAM) to be reviewed by an Ombudsman.

5)

I note your comments and acknowledge your right of review by an ombudsman. It will probably be the case that the complaint will be referred to an ombudsman, however our procedure states that I have to assess any response from a decision first before deciding the next course of action. I can assure you that if an ombudsman's review is the best way forward then this will be the course of action taken.

I will contact you again soon.

6)

David,

We would like add this to our request for a review.

When making your decision you stated “I do not consider the fact that the loan agreement states the loan is regulated means that it actually is” we know we have asked you to explain how this has affected your decision in writing but we would like to make the comparison to purchasing a car. (We are fully aware that it is not exactly the same thing, however there are many similarities)

When purchasing a car from a well-know, reputable dealer such as Land Rover for example; if the vehicle in question was showing 100,000 miles on the clock you would believe that the car had in fact done that many miles. Being a well known, large, reputable company you would not doubt this or feel the need to check this information - maybe if you were purchasing the car from another less well-known and reputable source than maybe you would run an HPI check to ensure the information you had been provided with was correct and truthful.

In our minds this directly relates to our loan agreement with NRAM. We were looking for a product and NRAM offered us one. We read through the contract / paperwork and coming from a large, well-known, reputable High Street lender we had no reason to doubt that the information we were provided with was not only correct but the truth. Had we of been borrowing from a backstreet, smaller, un-known company (which we would never do) we would have possibly expected there to be some discrepancies.

Going back to the car comparison if as customers we later found that the vehicle (bought from Land Rover) had in fact been clocked we legally would have the right to complain, to have our complaint taken seriously and even for the police to become involved. We would be compensated somehow for the companies error and they would have to accept that they had made a grave error and face whatever consequences came with making such a mistake.

We understand that clocking a car is different to plastering an incorrect statement, in BOLD and at several points throughout a legally binding contract and subsequent paperwork. However the fact that as customers we would have been deceived remains the same.

Had we of gone into Land Rovers to purchase a vehicle and the model we were interested in was showing the correct mileage of lets say, 210,000 we would have had the opportunity to make an informed decision because all of the facts were presented truthfully to us and we may have walked away.

As customers of NRAM we were never given this opportunity. The true facts / correct information was not actually correct at the time of us signing to the agreement and you have know way of knowing that we would not have made a different decision had we of been clear of the exact and correct, truthful terms.

We feel that you stating “I do not consider the fact that the loan agreement states the loan is regulated means that it actually is” is appalling. As customers, we did not have the correct terms / facts presented to us by NRAM back in 2007 when we chose to borrow from them and therefore did not have the chance to make an informed decision. Regardless of what you "think" we may or may not have done the fact remains we were seriously mislead through no mistake of our own.

7)

David,

we are making a serious request that our case may be reviewed by an Ombudsman.
No doubt the letter we will be receiving from you in the next couple of days will be (probably word for word) the same as the one below (the letter most people have received after requesting a review) even though each case is supposed to be looked at on its own merits.

Hope you don't mind but I borrowed your response letter Chrisb80

My response is as follows:

• A number of the protections afforded to you by the Consumer Credit Act 1974 (CCA) are included as part of your current loan as they are written into the contract. These protections, listed under the ‘Key Information’ do form part of the contract. These include the ability to pay off the loan early and to be served with a default notice before any court proceeding take place. While these are important protections that are still covered by your unregulated loan, I appreciate there may have been other protections under the Act which were important to you when you took it out in 2005. If you let me know what these were I will be happy to investigate if they are also covered under your unregulated loan.

(What actually does it matter which other protections were important to us? The documents were ultimately wrong and NRAM are not able to uphold all of the benefits / protections that we originally signed up for)

• The contract is still valid because it was entered into by both parties in good faith. While it has come to light that the loan is not regulated, this has not affected the fact that you had the benefit the funds, nor has it affected your ability to repay the loan in its original timescale.

(Yes we have had the benefit of the funds and all the rest of it, but they have made mistakes in our legally binding contract and subsequent paperwork that ultimately are fraudulent, why are they being allowed to get away with making such mistakes!?)

• The Financial Conduct Authority sets out eleven high level principles that all financial business, including NRAM, are obliged to follow. This includes that ‘a firm must pay due regard to the information needs of its clients, and communicate information to them in a way which is clear, fair and not misleading’. I think it is clear that NRAM did not act in line with this principle when it sent your loan agreement – it was misleading. We are not saying NRAM did not make a mistake, nor denying that the error has caused confusion.

(Please explain to us why then, as a consequence for being unfair and misleading that NRAM are not having to redress us for such errors? This seems to be very similar to PPI - when customers were sold something after being misled)

• The loan incorrectly stated it was regulated, but in order to for me to uphold your complaint I would need to prove that a financial loss had been made, which at this stage , I do not feel has been evidenced.

(Can you please explain to us what financial loss has been faced by those customers with loans under £25,000 who have received redress? Ultimately we have been paying interest charged on a loan that was untruthful, incorrect and fraudulent from the very beginning! That we very well may have not taken out had the correct information been available to us)

• I accept that NRAM mistakenly said your loan was regulated by the CCA. Generally, the remedy for misrepresentation is to look at what the affected party would have done differently if they had been had been given the correct information. I am inclined to agree that you may have acted differently if you had known from the outset that the loan was not regulated. If I am to assume that you would have taken out £25,000 or less, rather than £**,*** I would be able to consider that you may have acted differently. In order to demonstrate this I would need to see evidence that you had the extra £*,*** available to you in a bank account on the date the loan was taken out, and for a sustained period afterwards. I would also need to know what the purpose of all of the borrowing was and evidence what you used the funds for.

(In our situation we used the funds to consolidate existing debt , and to have the funds available for furniture / decoration when purchasing our first house together. We were living in an annex next door to our parents with no substantial outgoings, we were in no desperate need to move / purchase a property we were only doing so as it was the next step in our relationship. We could have very easily stayed where we were (parents still own the property now) had we of decided against the contract with NRAM if we had been provided with all the correct information. What difference does the money make anyway? Obviously if people had the money sitting in the bank in the first place then they would not have been borrowing! We most certainly would have borrowed less than £25,000 to ensure the protection had we of known and saved up for furniture / decoration. Banks only hold records for 6 years - surely something you should be aware of anyway and most people shred old records after 5 years)

I am sorry if you do not agree with our approach, I hope in addressing your points I have made our position clearer.
For the reasons outlined above I have to tell you that I am unable to recommend that your complaint should be upheld. I appreciate that this is likely to come as a disappointment to you. I know that this is not the outcome you were hoping for. But I hope that my explanation has been helpful in setting out clearly why I have taken this view.

This response does not address all of the issues we asked you to explain and we do look forward to receiving your written explanation for these. This might save you some time and actually mean that our response letter is different from all of the others being sent out

For what it is worth an on-line petition has been started which will be delivered to downing street. Non-conservative newspapers / press are being contacted to get this onto/ into the media. The fact that the FOS should be acting independently and without bias is clearly not happening as none of these cases have been upheld in the customers favour - the fact that NRAM and the FOS are both government run maybe at the bottom of this.

We do thank you for your time and for admitting that "NRAM mistakenly said your loan was regulated by the CCA. Generally, the remedy for misrepresentation is to look at what the affected party would have done differently if they had been had been given the correct information. I am inclined to agree that you may have acted differently if you had known from the outset that the loan was not regulated." It is clear that even though this is the case, nothing is going to be done about it.

We have tried contacting Watchdog twice now, with no luck - another issue with the government and the BBC? I am looking into how to start an online petition - anyone have any ideas? And if we can get a non-conservative newspaper or maybe ITV to take this on it may help.

DrAl_2

...I have also had my second FOS reply, similar to yours, I will also be replying as you have above but it looks as thought no one is getting anywhere with this.
Fos and NRAM both government run....what can we do next?

Interesting to see what views the ombudsman will take.

ajm173

Please visit the website and sign to show your support. By coming together as one, we will not be ignored.

This petition is for all NRAM customers with "Together Mortgages" and loans in excess of £25,000 who have received no financial redress for NRAMs incompetence with regards to the 1974 CCA. Even after seeking aid from the FOS and having 0% of our complaints upheld.

(won't let me post a link as I am a new user so please put www. in front of link)

ipetitions.com/petition/justice-for-nrams-together-mortgage-customers/

ajm173

I have also just e-mailed (see below) a couple of newspaper / television contacts. Fingers crossed someone, somewhere will be able to help us.

I write to you on behalf of a vast group of NRAM (Northern Rock) customers who are campaigning to have their complaints taken seriously after both NRAM themselves and the Financial Ombudsman Service are dismissing such complaints.

In December 2012 it was revealed that NRAM customers with "Together Mortgages" had been ultimately deceived as a result of having contracts / paperwork that included the following incorrect statement:

"This loan is covered by the 1974 CCA"

It turned out that this statement (which was plastered in bold and at several points all over our loan agreement and subsequent paperwork) was incorrect, as at the time of us customers signing these agreement the 1974 CCA only covered loans up to £25,000.

Customers with loans less than £25,000 have been redressed for this error.
However, for us customers with loans in excess of £25,000 we have received no such redress for their incompetence.

After complaining to NRAM directly and getting no-where, we have had no other choice but to approach the FOS. The FOS pride themselves on their website for taking each individual complaint seriously and on its' own merits, however they have upheld 0% of our complaints. Taking this into account maybe this is a result of both the FOS and NRAM being owned by the government? Therefore, the FOS are not acting in an unbiased manner and we as customers have no-where else to turn.

An online petition has been started to try to help us gain power in numbers. If we can try to break into the media then hopefully the public can not only be made aware of yet another NRAM blunder but also it will highlight the cover up by the FOS.

Watchdog, on the BBC have been contacted on more than one occasion, but as yet, we have received no response. Again we wonder if this has anything to do with the fact that the BBC is funded by the government?

If you can provide us with any assistance / advice at all on this matter it would be very much appreciated.

Keep everything crossed!

lizards

We didn't have the savings back in 2004 to cover the shortfall, because we were in a lot of debt. The unsecured loan consolidated that debt and provided a deposit. £25K was the amount we first asked for, but Northern Rock offered us £30K and a larger deposit percentage - we could see no reason not to accept because nobody told us the larger loan would not be CCA regulated, in fact of course we were told the opposite. Had we known, we would have stuck to £25K and left some of the credit where it was in a regulated agreement, and would have had the payout all the others have now had; therefore, financial loss. But there is no way to prove any of this even if we did have hard copies of the other credit/loan agreements from that time!

I've signed the petition, thank you for setting it up.