Welcome Finance Rip Off!!!

MrsPass

Hi All,


I am looking for a bit of advice with the regards to the delightful company which is Welcome Finance. I took a secured loan out with them over a 10 year period back in March of 2008 for £13,000 (I know huge mistake but it was my only option at the time) and was making payments of £270 per month. In 2009 I was made redundant and missed around 3 payments with them however once back in work I made payments to the loan again straightaway and continued at the £270 until Sept 2011 at this point Welcome we're putting pressure on me to increase the monthly payments due to the missed payments, at this point I increased the payment amount to £300 per month which I have been ever since.


Anyway tonight I thought I would check my statement from them and according to them I still owe £10,777.77. I have check payments from my bank account which I switched from Halifax to Santander back in October 2010 and from my Statements with Santander I have made payments totalling £16,609.98 and this doesn't include payments made from my old account which would be a further 20/21 payments!


I recently requested a copy of my account details which they 'sent' but I never received and I am going to send off a CCA request tomorrow as I feel that this loan should be closed now or at least very close.


My direct debit is due to be taken Friday but I have cancelled this (in rage partly) and I am going to raise a complaint - does anyone have any advice please - am I doing the right thing?


Thanks :-)

Tixy

Personally I wouldn't cancel your DD in the interim. If will affect your credit file if you miss payments, and reduce your chance of being able to refinance elsewhere if they outstanding amount proves to be right.

If it was a 10year agreement originally from 2008 then it seems very unlikely that you wouldn't have an outstanding balance still, even without the issue of missing payments for a period.

Getting a copy of the original agreement, and asking for a full breakdown of all transactions is a good idea.
Until you have that and have had chance to review then I wouldn't make a complaint as you won't have a full picture.

Looking at the figures you have given (and assuming no PPI etc), then for the payments to have been £270 a month it looks like the APR would have been around 22% and would have meant a total interest of £19,400, and a total amount repayable of £32,400. If you missed payments then you would expect that the overall amount to repay would be higher.

And it sounds like you have paid about £21k so far.

CHR15

What did you agree to swap their £13,000 for in the first place, ignoring the missed payments and charges?

MrsPass

There is no PPI on the account and on my most recent statement the APR is 20.76% per annum.

MrsPass

CHR15 wrote: »

What did you agree to swap their £13,000 for in the first place, ignoring the missed payments and charges?

Sorry unsure what you mean?

chambta

Sounds about right to me without knowing the breakdown of the missed payments and any charges they make for that.

jonesMUFCforever

OP Where will you live if they apply to repossess the house?

mjm3346

Numbers look about right, even without the extra charges/missed payments you would have roughly 3 years payments to make at £270 a month = £9720 so with the missed payments, extra charges and interest it could easily be well over £10k outstanding.

You will incur extra charges for the declined DD if it is cancelled

David301

As you stand at the moment for the loan to be finished now you would have to have borrowed £13,000 at 20.76% over 84 months. Payments would have been £300pm and total interest payable about £12.000

But what you agreed to was £13,000 over 120 months at 20.76% so about £18,000 in interest

For the extra 3 years its costing you £6000 in interest

Are you able to over pay?

[Deleted User]

MrsPass wrote: »

My direct debit is due to be taken Friday but I have cancelled this (in rage partly) and I am going to raise a complaint - does anyone have any advice please - am I doing the right thing?

No. Your first priority today is to call up, apologise for cancelling the DD and find a way to make payment to them before the due date. Then get the DD set up in place ASAP.

Check with them whether you will be penalised for cancelling the DD.

Jon_B_2

How is it a rip off if you have not read the terms and conditions correctly?