Wonga help

Yorkshire_Pudding_2

Hi all, I am new here and this is my first post on the forum so I hope I am doing it right!

My fridge freezer broke down last month, and I lost all of our food too. Nobody could lend me any money and I was broke so had to resort to Wonga. At the time I honestly thought I would be ok and that I would be able to pay it back on time - my promise date is 19th July, so thats this Friday.

However I have struggled this month for a few reasons. So last night/early hours of this morning I clicked the thing on the Wonga site for where you are in financial difficulty. I filled out both the income/expenditure parts and offered to pay £10 a week for 39 weeks to clear my debt. I then submitted my form.

A short while later I got an email from them which says..

Our aim is always to help you settle your loan as quickly as possible. Acknowledging difficulty in repaying is actually half the battle, so we really appreciate you getting in touch to discuss a repayment plan

Although we can’t enter into a new agreement, I’m happy to confirm we’ll accept your payments against the original agreement as per the plan below.

We strongly encourage you to make your first repayment on the agreed date as interest will continue to accrue until we receive it. At that point, all interest will be frozen for as long as the plan is maintained or until the balance is paid in full. If you think you’ll have difficulty making the first repayment, please contact us.

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If you miss a payment under the plan, the full remaining balance under that plan will become due and payable to us and will be automatically collected from your debit card. We’ll also make further attempts to collect the money you owe from your debit card during the course of your loan (up to 120 days past your due date). We will try at first for 80% of the outstanding balance and will continue to attempt to take a payment of decreasing amounts until we successfully collect a payment. If 80% is unsuccessful, we will try 60%, then 40% then 20%, then 10%. We will never take less than £10. If you have provided us with details of another debit card and we are unable to collect from your primary debit card, we will also attempt to collect payment from the most recently saved card in the same decreasing amounts

We therefore encourage you to stick to the plan but, if you have a problem or want to discuss the arrangement, please call our friendly team on 0844 842 9109.

We look forward to receiving your first payment.

So I thought all was ok and I am on the road to getting this sorted. However I logged into my Wonga account, and on the 'my account page' it says my promise date is still 19th July. BUT there is a link underneath where it says how much I owe that says 'your repayment arrangement'. The link goes to my payment plan, so I can't understand why it is showing my promise date still? Are they going to try and clear me out on Friday?

Also, I checked my emails on my phone this morning. And the exact same email I quoted above, shows like a tagline under 'The Team from Wonga' and it says 'Please contact us urgently, failed repayment plan'. This is the exact same email, but when I view it on the laptop, it does'nt say anywhere anything about a failed repayment plan.

I am so confused. Can anybody help? Thanks in advance x

sharp82

My promised repayment date still shows the 29/05!

Its probably a wise idea to move all you money, wages etc to a different bank account incase they try and take the full outstanding

Yorkshire_Pudding_2

Thanks Sharp. I have 2 accounts with natwest (a select silver and an advantage gold) and wonga have the details of the card to the select silver. So if I ring child benefit, tax credits ect and have everything paid into my gold account, then Wonga won't be able to touch it? x

gb12345

Yorkshire_Pudding wrote: »

Thanks Sharp. I have 2 accounts with natwest (a select silver and an advantage gold) and wonga have the details of the card to the select silver. So if I ring child benefit, tax credits ect and have everything paid into my gold account, then Wonga won't be able to touch it? x

NatWest will probably use offsetting to move money from the advantage gold to the select silver to cover any debits.

You need an account with a bank that is not connected to NatWest.

spacey2012

Make absolute no mistake on this point :
wonga will "attack" the bank account in the middle of the night and take every penny paid in within seconds of it arriving in your bank removing everything in the account.
You need to have any overdraft facility cancelled immediately and instruct the bank to cancel any direct debit under "direct debit guarantee" scheme in writing as well as verbally.
Wonga will re-set up the direct debit, this is however to give you some come back against the bank.
You will then need a new bank account to have any payments or wages paid in to.
Then you can inform Wonga you can not pay and are in default.
You then should set up a standing order only from the old account, never a direct debit for the agreed payment monthly and inform Wonga of this.
Pay in cleared funds for the standing order value only.
Any direct debits will need to be moved to the new account

I am afraid this is a lot of hassle but nobody has a better way.
Dont worry about your credit score, it is trashed by pay day loans anyway.

gb12345

spacey2012 wrote: »

You need to have any overdraft facility cancelled immediately and instruct the bank to cancel any direct debit under "direct debit guarantee" scheme in writing as well as verbally.
Wonga will re-set up the direct debit, this is however to give you some come back against the bank.

Wonga don't use direct debits, they use a Continuous Payment Authority on the debit card that they hold, so the direct debit guarantee is irrelevant.

This can be cancelled, but the money will likely still come out of the account, but the bank must then refund it.

@OP contact your bank and tell them that you want to cancel the CPA that Wonga hold. The call centre monkey will probably tell you that they can't do it, if so refer them to Payment Services Regulations 2009 and that legally they have to cancel it and refund any payments taken after it is cancelled.

Yorkshire_Pudding_2

My credit rating is poor anyway thanks to an ex who was a gambler *sigh* I cannot get a different account anywhere else. I am not very happy with natwest anyway and tried to get a new account elsewhere about 6 weeks ago, literally every single bank turned me down So I am stuck with natwest, what can I do? My friend said to ring the bank and say I have lost my card, will that work?

Yorkshire_Pudding_2

spacey2012 I have no overdraft on the account x

gb12345

Yorkshire_Pudding wrote: »

My friend said to ring the bank and say I have lost my card, will that work?

No, the account will still be debited due to the CPA. The only thing that will work is what I suggested in my previous post - cancelling the CPA.

Yorkshire_Pudding_2

Ugh I just tried ringing my bank and they won't speak to me about my account as I am not set up for telephone banking! They said I have to go into the branch and I can't get there until tomorrow! I get paid tomorrow, will wonga try and take money before the previously agreed promise date

sharp82

Cancelling the card wont work.

Cancelling the CPA should do the trick (I emailed HSBC and they did it in 2 days) Changing banks would give you that extra security.

Barclays have a basic account for people with bad credit. You'll need to do it in branch though