Payday lender to pay £34m redress to 97,000 customers

fatbelly

Apologies if posted elsewhere

This is CFO Lending, also trading as Payday First, Flexible First, Money Resolve, Paycfo, Payday Advance and Payday Credit.

CFO Lending has agreed with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to provide the amount for more than 97,000 customers.

It consists of £31.9m of written-off customers’ outstanding balances and £2.9m in cash payments to customers.

A number of serious failings caused detriment for many customers at CFO Lending’s brands; these date back to the firm’s launch in April 2009 and include:

• The firm’s systems not showing the correct loan balances for customers, so that some customers ended up repaying more money than they owed;

• Misusing customers’ banking information to take payments without permission;

• Making excessive use of continuous payment authorities (CPAs) to collect outstanding balances from customers. In many cases, the firm did so where it had reason to believe or suspect that the customer was in financial difficulty;

• Failing to treat customers in financial difficulties with due forbearance, including refusing reasonable repayment plans suggested by customers and their advisers;

• Sending threatening and misleading letters, texts and emails to customers;

• Routinely reporting inaccurate information about customers to credit reference agencies;

• Failing to assess the affordability of guarantor loans for customer.

sourcrates

Excellent news !!!!

Its not the only company to be guilty of such practices either.

I see a few more heads rolling in the near future.

National_Debtline

Thanks fatbelly. There’s an MSE page here which adds:

‘You don't need to do anything for now, as CFO Lending has said it will contact any customers that are due redress by March 2017.

If you think you're entitled to redress and don't hear anything by March 2017 then you can contact CFO Lending on 0203 583 6303.’

www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/loans/2016/09/customers-of-payday-loan-firm-cfo-lending-to-receive-34m-in-redress-for-unfair-practices-?_ga=1.219033497.1408106604.1474283094

James
@natdebtline