Everyday Loans - Early Repayment Nightmare

johanna70

Hi All,

I'm having a bit of a nightmare with Everyday Loans and wondering if there is anyone else with similar experiences?

I took out a loan with Everyday Loans last year as I had got myself into a hole with payday loans. Very stupid I know but at the time I had bad credit and needed a short term fix to pay for boiler repairs, as is always the case with these things it escalated and got out of control.

At the time I was very happy to be given a loan with Everyday Loans as it reduced all the payments that I was trying to juggle into one repayment.

They told me at the time that I could repay the money early but that there was an early repayment penalty of two month's interest. They also said that I could avoid this by ringing the branch and making a couple of repayments to clear the balance.

I recently inherited enough money to clear the loan and called Everyday Loans on Monday to sort this out.
The guy I spoke to initially was absolutely clueless. The loan balance was £5300, but he tried to talk me into making one repayment of £5800 because I "had been given the money", it was "free money" and I might as well "just clear it all in one go for the sake of 500 quid" !

I told him that I wanted to avoid wasting £500 if it really was just a case of paying off the balance in two transactions a few days apart, and as I had a repayment of just under £300 due later in the week, would paying off £5000 in one lump sum on Monday mean that I had avoided the interest penalty.

He said that was correct and that on the repayment date they would be able to confirm that the balance had been paid.

I went ahead and paid £5000.

TODAY I got a call from another advisor at the branch. He asked me if I wanted to make a repayment today, and I said yes. He then told me that because of the repayment I had made on Monday, I would have to pay 2 months interest penalty.

I queried this and explained that his advisor had told me to make that payment (after first trying to convince me to just pour £500 down the drain) and assured me that I would avoid the interest penalty.

The guy then sounded really confused. He claimed that their calculations were only done once a month and that I wouldn't know for sure whether things had worked out in my favour until the 23rd of July. Then he said that interest was calculated daily but applied once a month, so I would find out on the 1st July.

He asked me if I wanted to not make the June payment, to "wait and see" if things worked out. I absolutely wanted to make the June payment - this is what I am contractually obligated to pay and I didn't want to risk a missed payment on my credit record because Everyday Loans can't get their act together.

I asked him if he would be taking the normal repayment or a reduced repayment as by my calculations, the normal repayment would bring my loan account into credit by about £5. He was absolutely bamboozled by this so I told him to just take the contracted payment.

He then said he was not able to give me an updated balance and that I could find this out next week. He promised that someone will call me back to explain what is going on, but I am not holding out much hope!

Has anyone else had issues with early repayment to Everyday Loans? At best, I hope the people I dealt with were just incompetent, at worst, it sounds deliberately shady - an attempt to get customers to pay the interest penalty.

At the end of the day, I will be very annoyed if I have to pay an extra £500 interest penalty but its not the end of the world - in that respect, the initial advisor was right, I have been given "free money" and will keep that to the side. BUT seeing that Everyday Loans were so keen to tell me that I could repay early and avoid the penalty by contacting them, I don't understand why they are now so perplexed when someone takes them up on the offer!
I am also astounded that they cannot provide me with up to date figures on my loan balance.

Tixy

To avoid the 58 days settlement interest you usually have to make the large initial payment more than a month before the final payment (not everyday loans specifically just personal loans in general).

If you try to pay just a few days later they are still entitled to charge the normal early settlement interest.

johanna70

Thank you Tixy.

I emailed Everyday Loans customer complaints department after I saw your reply and asked them to give me a call back to explain what was going on.

Had a call back this afternoon. At first they tried to get me to pay £580, then £282 (the usual monthly payment), and finally after I asked her if there was nothing else they could do, she went away to speak to a supervisor and said that I didn't need to pay anything further & that she'd close the account today.

This was in the space of a 5 minute phone call and I didn't threaten them with Ombudsman etc, just said that I was quite annoyed at the lack of correct information I'd received from the branch. I think they are all either quite clueless or complete chancers!

I will wait until I get the letter from them to confirm that the account is definitely closed and all money is paid before I start popping the champagne though!