Repaying a loan

385gh

My Mother recently signed to have central heating work done through british gas and a loan company they use.

The interest rates are massive around 40%. Because she was ashamed to admit her mistake she has been paying this off slowly and admitted t me her situation this week.

Does anybody know if i can contact them and pay the balance off with immediate effect and end all relations and loans with this awful company?

Neil_948

Due to data protection you would have to get your mum to make the call and clarify the dpa questions and then would need to give permission for them to speak to you about the financial aspects of the account so you can then speak with them about whether they would accept a settlement or not. But tbh I can't see why they shouldn't however you may have to pay a bit more than the cost of the work due to the credit agreement being set up now.


But still worth speaking to them about it.
Also check the agreement it may tell you in that but should certainly detail any early repayment charges.

CLAPTON

385gh wrote: »

My Mother recently signed to have central heating work done through british gas and a loan company they use.

The interest rates are massive around 40%. Because she was ashamed to admit her mistake she has been paying this off slowly and admitted t me her situation this week.

Does anybody know if i can contact them and pay the balance off with immediate effect and end all relations and loans with this awful company?

yes, ask them for a settlement figure and pay the amount before the due date

bigadaj

You could also make a formal complaint, and if no redress speaking to the press or your mp. I'm not in favour of people complaining about loans they've signed up to but this case sounds like hard selling from the limited information and bg should be acting better as the former monopoly utility, know I'm dreaming with the last part of that sentence though.

Gaz83

bigadaj wrote: »

You could also make a formal complaint, and if no redress speaking to the press or your mp. I'm not in favour of people complaining about loans they've signed up to but this case sounds like hard selling from the limited information and bg should be acting better as the former monopoly utility, know I'm dreaming with the last part of that sentence though.

You have no evidence of that, though. There's no information in the OP to assume that their mum is incapable of making financial decisions. As the OP said, the mum admits it is her own mistake. What do you think the OP should complain about?

OP, as others have said, it's fairly straightforward. Get your mum to give the loan company a call with you in the room, let her pass the data protection checks and ask that they speak to you, ask for a settlement figure, and then make arrangements to pay it.

bigadaj

Gaz83 wrote: »

You have no evidence of that, though. There's no information in the OP to assume that their mum is incapable of making financial decisions. As the OP said, the mum admits it is her own mistake. What do you think the OP should complain about?

OP, as others have said, it's fairly straightforward. Get your mum to give the loan company a call with you in the room, let her pass the data protection checks and ask that they speak to you, ask for a settlement figure, and then make arrangements to pay it.

You don't have to be incapable of making financial decisions to make a complaint about poor sales practices.

BG fall into the same pot as the big banks, and still try and benefit from the impression they are trustworthy when they are just after sales targets with overpriced finance attached. A bit of bad PR might be a useful leverage.

FireWyrm

Bet you anything that BG sent an engineer out to do a minor repair and ended up 'condemning' the boiler thereby requiring major work to be done in order to make it 'legal' and 'safe' again. The are notorious for this. Their engineers are barely competant and are under pressure to 'condemn' any boiler over 5 years old so that you can then buy a new low standard boiler from BG at vastly a inflated price. Since the boiler is 'condemned', the poor mark is terrified about not having heating or hotwater and has little choice but to do what BG wants not knowing that they could have called any Corgi/GasSafe certified engineer out to do the work.

Is that about how it went OP?

bigadaj

FireWyrm wrote: »

Bet you anything that BG sent an engineer out to do a minor repair and ended up 'condemning' the boiler thereby requiring major work to be done in order to make it 'legal' and 'safe' again. The are notorious for this. Their engineers are barely competant and are under pressure to 'condemn' any boiler over 5 years old so that you can then buy a new low standard boiler from BG at vastly a inflated price. Since the boiler is 'condemned', the poor mark is terrified about not having heating or hotwater and has little choice but to do what BG wants not knowing that they could have called any Corgi/GasSafe certified engineer out to do the work.

Is that about how it went OP?

A colleague of mine got done. Grumpy big bloke in his forties from north notts, but fell for the British gas engineers appraisal, they persuaded him that he needed all his pipes and radiators replacing as well as the boiler. I hate to think what he spent but he is big and ugly enough to look after himself rather than a vulnerable older woman.