APS Financial / My Cash Plus / Clear Cash Problems

scottiedogcom

Oh my, where do I start…??

On entering back into the UK after many years living in the US, I found I had zero credit history, so taking some advice online, I opened up a Clear Cash and My Cash Plus prepaid credit cards. The plan was to use this to help build your credit, they advertise this, so awesome…

I applied for the credit builder system on both cards, after all, two lines of credit is better than one right? The first application went through instantly. The second actually got declined…..annoying, but after looking at the paperwork I realized, damn, it’s the same company, APS Financial, so that must/could be the reason.

After a couple of months, I pull my credit score, and I have a late payment from APS Financial, I search through my Gmail account and find that I did receive a warning email in my Spam folder. I call up, and find out that my second application was actually approved, it just took five weeks and a few days to be approved….yet they told me it was initially declined? So that did not help my score. I challenged this with them and I got nowhere, they would not remove it from my score. I loaded the card up with money and left it to run its course….

Then another late payment on my credit score, warning email in my spam, grrr. I tried logging into the online user account which they had deleted….nice of them. I then called up and sure enough, there was some crazy couple of no usage fee’s that reduced the balance on the card and caused a late payment. On calling them up I asked them I needed to cancel the account, which they agreed if I transferred over the late payment and paid of the credit builder loan. I did that straight away….

Until now, another late payment on my credit score. I called them up and they did not close the account, apparently there was a 50p positive balance. I confirmed again, I want the account closed, which they told me (again) they have done. I asked why there another month with a late payment when the account was in a positive balance and I get the following…
“It can take us up to three months for the account to go back to positive and paid”

Eh? Turns out even though the account is closed and paid up, I potentially could still get another three months of late payment marks…..grrrrrrr…this is crazy!!

Is there nothing I can do to get this removed from my score?

[Deleted User]

Raise a formal complaint. You may get lucky and have it removed from your file (not score).

The point to focus on is the initial decline, which gave you no reason to believe they had created an account for you.

National_Debtline

Hi

When you complain as zx81 suggests threaten to escalate the issue to the FOS if they don’t resolve it to you satisfaction. It may make them take the matter more seriously.

James
@natdebtline

gregor123

The Creditbuilder option that Cashplus as well as ClearCash (now rebranded as icount) is a great alternative tool for those who want to look at improving their credit history. I know these accounts rather well as a campaigner for the unbanked sector.

I'm guessing that by submitting 2 applications within close proximity triggered something on their systems - as you say, APS underwrite both of them so you may have triggered a fraud alert innocently however I'm again thinking they have to do this for compliance / due diligence or KYC...

There seems to be 2 fundamental issues here. 1 being that emails they sent hit your spam filter... is this their fault? personally I don't think so and whenever applying for a financial product you should keep your eye out for notifications relating to your account, especially if you opted for their credit repair system.

I can't see how a prepaid card application can affect your credit rating? surely only a default in payment can do this?

the 2nd issue is you loading up funds for it to run its course. To be honest I think this is an easy mistake to make however it does state in their terms and conditions that after no activity, a dormancy fee comes in and they class the account as not being used - it is odd but again you should have been emailed about this? were you?? It is essential to read the terms of the account as well as additional terms I'm thinking come with Creditbuilder.

I must admit, I am surprised with how your query has been handled by their customer services. If I were you I would escalate this - ask to speak to a manager or someone at Back Office... from doing a bit of googling a lot of their material comes from someone called Karen Kingdom.

Follow their complaints procedure and if you are still not happy I would defo go to FOS

I hope this helps?