MSE News: Wonga busted by the FCA: 330,000 to have their loan wiped

Brains64

Twin_mummy wrote: »

5th Nov and mines finally been cleared from my account. It says "you do not currently have a live loan with us" - thank goodness!

No email confirmation from them to say it's been zero'd as their earlier email on 10th Oct said they would.!

Yes, this is what it says on mine too, the problem at the moment is they're moving everything onto another website so whatever's on there surely needs more clarification but I guess 'You do not currently have a live loan' is fairly self explanatory although their use of the word 'live' suggests to me that they still have inactive loan records that will be kept on the system when they transfer it to their new site so they probably won't allow us to lend from them again even when we improve our scores and meet the new criteria (could be they're way of punishing us :rotfl:), not that I ever would after this fiasco, they've now become a must to avoid for me, perhaps they really will clean up their act in fairness though, I presume that they will redirect our browsers from the old one to their new site when it's done.

Brogden

Hello Everybody,

Is there anybody here whose loan was sold by Wonga? Mine was sold to BCW/Gothia/Red Castle.

Contrary to the original MSE announcement, if Wonga sold the loan then that person is not affected and will not have their loan written off regardless of whether they would pass or fail Wonga's new criteria.

I do appreciate what Wonga is doing and would want to support them but being excluded because the debt has been sold is utterly unjust and I do not believe that this stance can in any way be justified.

I would love to hear from anybody else in the same situation. I have ceased payments on my repayment plan and written formal letters of complaint to both Wonga and the DCA.

I received a letter dated 24th October from the DCA advising 'no further action' whilst the complaint is investigated but nothing so far from Wonga. They either concede or I will, following receipt of final response(s) take the matter to the FOS.

As mentioned I would be very keen to hear of others' experiences.

All the best,

Brogden.

just.me_3

I can't get into my Wonga account anymore (can't remember the email address at the time!) but the default has been wiped from my Experian report on 04/11/14, it's still showing on Noddle but my new report isn't due for another week so I guess it will update at that point.

Brains64

Brogden wrote: »

Hello Everybody,

Is there anybody here whose loan was sold by Wonga? Mine was sold to BCW/Gothia/Red Castle.

Contrary to the original MSE announcement, if Wonga sold the loan then that person is not affected and will not have their loan written off regardless of whether they would pass or fail Wonga's new criteria.

I do appreciate what Wonga is doing and would want to support them but being excluded because the debt has been sold is utterly unjust and I do not believe that this stance can in any way be justified.

I would love to hear from anybody else in the same situation. I have ceased payments on my repayment plan and written formal letters of complaint to both Wonga and the DCA.

I received a letter dated 24th October from the DCA advising 'no further action' whilst the complaint is investigated but nothing so far from Wonga. They either concede or I will, following receipt of final response(s) take the matter to the FOS.

As mentioned I would be very keen to hear of others' experiences.

All the best,

Brogden.

Best of luck with that, this sounds like unprecedented legal grey area to me so I don't know where you stand although I would guess that as the debt was likely to be one that Wonga shouldn't have allowed in the first place, they've kinda committed yet another offence (to add to their collection) there by selling it off if you ask me, as you say, I too would have thought it would unjustified for you to have to pay it if it should have been legally written off, this is assuming they really sold it off, remember, this is a company that was caught out faking law firm letters, if they can do that then there's no deception they wouldn't have stooped to, not saying this is definitely the case but would be worth double checking.

I actually thought for a while they sold my debt too as I hadn't heard from them for ages after they sent me two reminder letters but they didn't, when I set up a DM plan to pay various creditors including them it was still under 'Wonga', also I was told that they normally don't sell off debts but it seems as if they have with a few.

Maybe it depends on the amount owed, roughly how much was it if you don't mind me asking?, my debt was under £400 and I had already paid three months of roll over interest before defaulting, perhaps it wouldn't have been worth it for them to sell it, they don't get as much for selling it as they would coming to an arrangement, this is why it's a last resort, if they think they'll have no chance of getting anymore off of you, also taking it to court isn't worth it for them either as it costs heaps and the courts don't see PDA's as worth their time so they could end up losing the case, they don't think much of private debt collectors either for the same reason, once again, best of luck.

just.me_3

Brogden wrote: »

Hello Everybody,

Is there anybody here whose loan was sold by Wonga? Mine was sold to BCW/Gothia/Red Castle.

Contrary to the original MSE announcement, if Wonga sold the loan then that person is not affected and will not have their loan written off regardless of whether they would pass or fail Wonga's new criteria.

I do appreciate what Wonga is doing and would want to support them but being excluded because the debt has been sold is utterly unjust and I do not believe that this stance can in any way be justified.

I would love to hear from anybody else in the same situation. I have ceased payments on my repayment plan and written formal letters of complaint to both Wonga and the DCA.

I received a letter dated 24th October from the DCA advising 'no further action' whilst the complaint is investigated but nothing so far from Wonga. They either concede or I will, following receipt of final response(s) take the matter to the FOS.

As mentioned I would be very keen to hear of others' experiences.

All the best,

Brogden.

Very best of luck with following this up, completely agree that this is unfair. If the debt has been sold, Wonga should be making follow up arrangements with these DCAs to clear the balance on your behalf, and I would expect, personally, that they should also refund any monies you have repaid as part of that collection process too.

Good luck!

enfield_freddy

wouldn't it be fun if the dca sold it back to Wonga for a profit

Monkeyballs

I'm basing this on nothing so don't read too much into my speculation but...

I wonder if your loan is one which would have still been granted under their 'new and improved' checks but because you are already repaying it by a DMP rather than maintaining the debt and charging zero interest on it they have washed their hands by selling it on?

This means you're not paying any extra, they're not having to maintain a 'bad debt' and have taken a hit* by selling the debt on to a DCA for less than what is due to be collected (as with every debt sold on to a DCA)?

*If I recall they said they are writing off £120m at the cost of £30m (or something like that) so the loss to them is included in that other £90m?

Either way, I would expect Wonga to advise you...

MB

Monkeyballs

just.me wrote: »

Very best of luck with following this up, completely agree that this is unfair. If the debt has been sold, Wonga should be making follow up arrangements with these DCAs to clear the balance on your behalf, and I would expect, personally, that they should also refund any monies you have repaid as part of that collection process too.

Good luck!

I can't see that happening since they'd be losing more money still LOL, why would they sell the debt to a DCA only to give them what is owed by the customer to settle it?

MB

fermi

Debt sale agreements do often include a "buy back" clause enabling the seller to reacquire problem accounts in some circumstances.

Brogden

just.me wrote: »

Very best of luck with following this up, completely agree that this is unfair. If the debt has been sold, Wonga should be making follow up arrangements with these DCAs to clear the balance on your behalf, and I would expect, personally, that they should also refund any monies you have repaid as part of that collection process too.

Good luck!

Thanks and thanks to Brains too. One of my posts was actually quoted in the Daily Mail in an article on Wonga. Its a pity that the first time I have ever been quoted in the papers that I got my facts wrong and mentioned the wrong DCA Doh........!

Wonga have definitely sold debts and mine has definitely been sold. It is not just being collected by a third party....it is owned by a third party and I am looking at the letter now

On the subject of fake solicitors......well......where did Wonga get that idea from? The answer is, they got it copying the antics of just about every one of the highly respectable high street lenders who had been doing this since before any of us lot were around! To me it is extremely amusing that within a few days of the Wonga shock and scandal in the media that all of the high street banks had filled their pants and canned their fake solicitors/DCA's so.......

HBoS (now Lloyds) killed an old favourite 'Blair Oliver & Scott'
NatWest killed 'Triton Credit Services'
Lloyds killed SCM Solicitors
HSBC killed DG Solicitors
RBS killed Green & Co

There are others too - I can't remember the Barclays one but everybody and their dog were at it.

Well........there are a lot of things in this tough new world which ain't great but now and then we see the odd improvement and something to make us smile I personally think it is so funny :T

Brogden.