Pragon settlement HELP!!!!!!!

upthewall_2

I have a loan with Paragon finance, which my OH and I foolishly took out 6 years ago for £15000.00. I am looking to settle the account tomorrow and they sent me a sttlement figure for almost £14000.00. I called them and told them I have £12k to settle, can they waive interest or anything at all and was told no!!

We have arrears on the loan due to my oh having an accident at work last year, when we tried to claim payment protection they told us we were only covered for the first half of the loan, which expired a month earlier.

Has anyone had simialr experience with this company and does anyone know if there is a way we can get them to reduce the settlement figure.

Another thing, we got a settlement figure from them in anuary and it was £500.00 less!!

upthewall_2

upthewall wrote: »

I have a loan with Paragon finance, which my OH and I foolishly took out 6 years ago for £15000.00. I am looking to settle the account tomorrow and they sent me a sttlement figure for almost £14000.00. I called them and told them I have £12k to settle, can they waive interest or anything at all and was told no!!

We have arrears on the loan due to my oh having an accident at work last year, when we tried to claim payment protection they told us we were only covered for the first half of the loan, which expired a month earlier.

Has anyone had simialr experience with this company and does anyone know if there is a way we can get them to reduce the settlement figure.

Another thing, we got a settlement figure from them in anuary and it was £500.00 less!!

and the balance is £12700.00

keyser123

You've no chance of coming to an agreement over them with the redemption penalty. As they will have the loan secured on your property there's no reason for them to. They'll get their money in the end.

I should imagine you took the loan over a long period (20 years or so). It's much the same as a capital repayment mortgage on a 1st charge. For the first few years or so you'll hardly see a reduction as the majority of what you pay is interest on the capital you borrow.

If you took ASU they probably built that into the loan too. You may have borrowed about 18 or 19k in total.

Sorry it's probably not what you want to hear.

upthewall_2

Thanks for that.

The loan is unsecured and over 10 years, which is why I am so appalled by the settlement figure.

I just contacted them and got a result though. It turns out that they have been charging me £20 for each phonecall they have made and £10 for each letter they have sent, so I asked them to refund these charges to bring the settlement down and of course they said no! At the end up I explained I have £12k, they can take it to settle the account or I would need to use it elswhere and my account would remain in arrears until I could afford to bring it up to date. The girl was very helpful, she spoke to her manager and came back 2 mins later and said thats fine we will reduce the settlement to £12000.:T :beer: :T :beer:

keyser123

I didn't realise it was unsecured. Paragon haven't done unsecured finance for ages so I assumed it must be secured. My bad!

Moneygrabber

Paragon are a nightmare!!
Me and OH took out a personal (unsecured) loan of £1,500 on 30/7/98 (Mainly to keep daughter in college fees).
A year later we were having financial difficulties and sought help from our local CAB. They were helpful and wrote to all our creditors specifying an amount we could afford. All were fine except Paragon!! They continually harassed us by phone stating not happy with figure CAB had instructed us to pay (12.49 per month). Because of harrassment we increased to £30 per month for 6 months and then £40 per month which we are still paying !

In short the amount we have paid so far for borrowing £1,500 is £3,002! and still paying monthly! Last July we sent letter asking for settlement figure and they quoted £1,819.35. We went back to CAB and they dictated letter which we sent that we were not happy with such high figure etc - We are still awaiting reply !! also we have not received any statements for about 4 years from them !
I know we have just carried on for such a long time paying the £40 standing order monthly when we should have put up a fight sooner, but with work and myself having some health problems time just slips by.
I have yesterday filled in a complaint form and sent details to Financial Ombudsman.
Not sure what the outcome will be, but live in hope !
Anyone had same problem ? Suggestions welcome. thank you.

upthewall_2

We had financial difficultulty over the p ast couple of years. We took out payment protection on our account and were told at the time it covered us for 50% of each of our salaries, turns out it only covered us for 50% of the loan term and we couldn't use it.

Our loan was for £15k in 1998 and our settlement figure was for almost £14k a few days ago. I budgeted £12k (thinking this was more than generous) and managed to persuade them to recalculated the settlement figure to
£12k. They charge you £20 for every phonecall they make to you and £10 for every letter they send you and add interest on top and this is probably why your balance is so high!

Have you tried asking for all the charges back?

Moneygrabber

Hi,

Yes we sent letter to Paragon July 2006 requesting back charges and still haven't had a reply! Our fault we should have been on to them to reply but now I've sent complaint form off to Financial Ombudsman.

£20 charge for every phone call they make £10 for letters they send....robbing b*******s !!

:mad:

upthewall_2

I agree;)

Let me know how you get on with FOS, I too am thinking of writing to complain.

Moneygrabber

I certainly will. Think FOS may tell me to write to Paragon again and if no joy get back in touch with them. Watch this space :rolleyes: