Tesco Bank scamming me?

dcouponzzzz

Hi All,

So I opened a personal loan with Tesco Bank for 7.5k in May 2014 to buy a car. Long story short I swapped my car for another and started a new secured loan after requesting a settlement fee from Tesco to be sent via hard copy.

On 12th July I asked for the hard copy the first time. It didn't arrive.
On 19th July I requested the hard copy a second time. It didn't arrive.
On 26th July I asked for it to be sent recorded delivery and for a confirmation email to be provided with the tracking number. Tesco advised it would be sent but they're not allowed to provide tracking numbers and there's a blanket policy where they can't email customers.
I've called multiple times since the 26th, and yesterday I finally was provided with a tracking number, and the settlement letter arrived today, 26 days after the initial request.

The time this took meant that my payment came out on 01/08 for both finances, Tesco's payment being the standard £157.

Settlement figure quoted on 26th July: £6522
Settlement figure on letter received 7th August: £6441

The scamming beggars have delayed this for almost 4 weeks just to take another payment from my account, and recalculate the settlment so that they can rob me of £77.

Do I have a case to claim this money back? Any advice is much appreciated.

cakeforbrains

To clarify: they told you the figure on the phone on the 26th, but you refused to pay until you had a hard copy, which took you over a payment date?

Why didn't you just pay it after you were given the figure on the phone?

dcouponzzzz

cakeforbrains wrote: »

To clarify: they told you the figure on the phone on the 26th, but you refused to pay until you had a hard copy, which took you over a payment date?

Why didn't you just pay it after you were given the figure on the phone?

Sorry no, I could only pay the settlement figure with the funds from the new finance. The car dealership couldn't release those funds until they had a hard copy of the fee amount in case I was lying. I physically couldn't provide the settlement fee until the hard copy was received, and it seems like Tesco took full advantage of that fact.

tomtontom

Not a scam, more an administrative mess up. Would they not give you the figure over the phone?

dcouponzzzz

They provided the initial figure of 6522 over the phone, but wouldn't speak with the dealership directly. I'd agree that it's an admin mess up if I didn't have at least 10 different call center operatives re-assurre me that it's been sent over a 4 week period. As it stands it looks very clearly like they stalled until the day after my payment cleared to send it.

cakeforbrains

dcouponzzzz wrote: »

Sorry no, I could only pay the settlement figure with the funds from the new finance. The car dealership couldn't release those funds until they had a hard copy of the fee amount in case I was lying. I physically couldn't provide the settlement fee until the hard copy was received, and it seems like Tesco took full advantage of that fact.

Ah, ok, sorry.

I doubt they would have actively stalled in order to gain one more month's interest out of you. I suspect that they are just slow.

dcouponzzzz

about a week before I'd requested the settlement figure, I'd actually requested an increased loan quote, the paperwork for which arrive in 3 days. If they're slow, then it's only when customer's are planning to leave, not borrow more money...

Tixy

Sounds like a bit of an admin mess up rather than any sort of scam. The profit on an extra month's borrowing on your loan would be minimal, and the actual customer services representatives you were dealing with wouldn't care about that potential extra profit at all.

Writing to complain may get you a small goodwill gesture. But would seem unlikely to have any case for getting a month's interest repaid.