Swift advances

jessica4

Hi all, after years of being unhappy with my Swift Advances loan I have decided to take the route of taking them to the small claims court myself.

What I am hoping for is for one of you to point me in the right direction of exactly what I need to do to get this started and what I need before I start?

The history is that in 2007 at the age of 22 I took out a loan from Swift for £13,300 secured against my property. The loan term was 15 years so is due to end in 2022. The original agreed repayment was £185 per month. A couple of years in I lost my job and subsequently fell behind on a few payments. Swift took me to court and the judge basically ordered me to catch up with my payments which I did. No further legal action was taken and I got back into work and began the payments again. However I was obviously now in arrears so what I was paying monthly was not touching my actual loan but just laying the interest. In 2012 having had enough of this I made a formal complaint to Swift and after receiving all statements from them came to realise that in the 5 years I had paid them over £12,000 but they where still insisting I owed them over £18,000 to clear my loan! Swift of course rejected my complaint and said it was what I had agreed. I then took the matter to the FOS and they did make Swift return £900 to my account that they found was charged to me in unfair fees but with regards to the fact I thought they where being unfair with regards to the interest they could not help me as an individual. At that time I could not afford to take this matter further to the small claims court. After years of fighting them and knowing I would never pay them back I just thought I would have to pay what they said and last year I agreed to pay them £330 per month instead of £185 by which they assured me would clear my loan by the end date of 2022.

However, first of all I don't know whether I can trust that this will settle me loan by 2022 as Swift are notorious liars and also I am now in a position to take this to the small claims court and fight the fact that they are making me pay back an obscene amount for a £13,300 loan.

I now have a child and want to have something to build his life on instead of paying Swift over the odds.

I hope you can help.

[Deleted User]

If you don't believe it will clear the loan, then ask them for written confirmation.

Your only options to clear it earlier are to overpay or to get further, cheaper finance to pay it off. The latter is probably unlikely as you have arrears on a high interest loan.

Check their policy on making overpayments.

What is your objective in taking them to court?

jessica4

I no longer have arrears on the loan they where cleared but I wouldn't want to take out another loan elsewhere as I am sure the early settlement fee is not much cheaper than paying monthly.
My objective is to have the loan stopped as I will now have paid approximately £20,000 with another 6 years of £330 a month to go and I think that is excessive I also would like a judge to look at what I have paid and see if they think I am due any money back as I have paid much over the odds of fair interest. I don't believe the loan agreement was explained to me properly at the time and I believe they took advantage of my situation.

DCFC79

jessica4 wrote: »

I no longer have arrears on the loan they where cleared but I wouldn't want to take out another loan elsewhere as I am sure the early settlement fee is not much cheaper than paying monthly.
My objective is to have the loan stopped as I will now have paid approximately £20,000 with another 6 years of £330 a month to go and I think that is excessive I also would like a judge to look at what I have paid and see if they think I am due any money back as I have paid much over the odds of fair interest. I don't believe the loan agreement was explained to me properly at the time and I believe they took advantage of my situation.

If it wasn't explained (or you didn't understand) to you at the time why did you not ask for a better explanation or ask a friend to explain it to you.

What was the purpose for the loan ?

boo_star

jessica4 wrote: »

I no longer have arrears on the loan they where cleared but I wouldn't want to take out another loan elsewhere as I am sure the early settlement fee is not much cheaper than paying monthly.
My objective is to have the loan stopped as I will now have paid approximately £20,000 with another 6 years of £330 a month to go and I think that is excessive I also would like a judge to look at what I have paid and see if they think I am due any money back as I have paid much over the odds of fair interest. I don't believe the loan agreement was explained to me properly at the time and I believe they took advantage of my situation.

It is large amount, but that's what happens when you take out a loan over such a long period, you pay a lot more interest. This is made worse by it being secured, which will offer poorer rates of interest than unsecured.

Do you have your original loan documents? Without those I think you'll struggle in court unless the defendant doesn't want to show them (by claiming that they've "lost" them most likely.). And if they include the APR and the total amount repayable I think you have almost no chance of winning.

jessica4

Thank you for your replies, I do not have the original documents but I would hope that Swift would provide me with them if I ask in writing.
I understand now that I should have looked into the company and the agreement more at the time but I was desperate and young and just needed the money. My point is that I don't think they made sure as a responsible lender that I fully understood the terms and interest rates. I also think that they have used a clause to increase the interest in certain circumstances which is why the interest rate is so high as the original payment terms would have meant I would have paid back £33,000 which I have paid by now with another 6 years at £330 to go. I didn't excessively miss payments it was just through a certain difficult time on my life that I missed a few and I have now cleared the arrears. I was just hoping that with the excess that I will now be paying a judge would look at this and see that it is obscene and order the loan to be closed etc.

Pixie5740

Just some basic arithmetic would tell you that you'd be paying a hell of a lot more than £13,300 back.

15 year term so that's 180 months in total. So £185 for 180 months is £33,300 and that's if you hadn't fallen into arrears. It's quite likely that this loan has a variable interest rate and the only way they seem to vary is up. I don't think a judge is going to side with you. You were an adult and big enough and ugly enough to own a home at the time.

jessica4

I understand that I wasn't exactly smart taking this loan but as I said I had no other way at the time. I had no family to help and my friends weren't aware of the situation. I only bought the house at 21 as it was my grandfathers and he passed away or I would never have been able. I am not saying I wasn't stupid but what I am saying is that I still think that what Swift are making me pay to clear the loan is very excessive and I wanted to know if there was any way a judge would agree with that. I have read a lot online about Swift and they seem to effect people who fall into difficulty and then spend the rest of their lives paying for it. Maybe the customer taking a loan with them is careless but some people don't have a choice and I'm not asking to have had a loan and never pay it back I have paid back around £30,000 already and I don't see how a company can get away with this.

boo_star

jessica4 wrote: »

I understand that I wasn't exactly smart taking this loan but as I said I had no other way at the time. I had no family to help and my friends weren't aware of the situation. I only bought the house at 21 as it was my grandfathers and he passed away or I would never have been able. I am not saying I wasn't stupid but what I am saying is that I still think that what Swift are making me pay to clear the loan is very excessive and I wanted to know if there was any way a judge would agree with that. I have read a lot online about Swift and they seem to effect people who fall into difficulty and then spend the rest of their lives paying for it. Maybe the customer taking a loan with them is careless but some people don't have a choice and I'm not asking to have had a loan and never pay it back I have paid back around £30,000 already and I don't see how a company can get away with this.

I don't mean to sound blunt or uncaring but unless there is legislation preventing them from doing so, if you agree to it and they follow the law (making you aware of interest, total amount repaid etc) then they can certainly "get away with it" because legally they're doing nothing wrong.

Unless you have evidence that they've acted illegally (or at least "contrary to lending guidelines") I don't see you having much of a chance in court and you'll end up throwing good money after bad.

jessica4

This is the thing I don't know if they are acting contrary to lending guidelines or not. Maybe I will ask them for all the paperwork first and then make another complaint directly to them (which im pretty sure will get me nowhere as nobody ever has any luck with them from what I have read). And then if not try the FOS route again and see what advice they give me. No matter what faults are mine I can't see how paying nearly £60,000 for a £13,000 loan which should have been a payback of £33,000 can be within lending guidelines, even with a few missed payments.

jonesMUFCforever

You can only make claims up to £10,000 in small claims.

Going to a higher court may mean your claim of £13k or so could be swamped in legal costs.

If your credit files allow can you not get a mortgage to pay off this loan at a much lower rate?

Please think very carefully about the consequences of taking legal action against anybody.