Paragon Personal Finance

Nearlyold

Chris_1973 wrote: »

Thanks but I'm ashamed to say that I don't really understand APR.
I suppose that daftly I've approached this from the way I was brought up whereby if you borrowed some money from someone you'd pay them back the amount borrowed plus a reasonable amount of interest (and asking for almost double back would definitely have been in the realm of unreasonable).
Of course I now know that the wider world isn't like that...

I think your memory of how borrowing used to be is way short of the reality, a typical standard mortgage rate in 2006 was 5% to 6% so for your type of borrowing a rate of 9% plus was by no means unusual or unexpected, going back further to the 1980s mortgage rates got to 16% at one point. Basically as others have said you borrowed at a relatively high interest rate over a longish term so it stands to reason you are going to pay a lot in interest. There are plenty of on line calculators available as Redux suggests for you to put your figures in so you can see the effect that the chosen term and interest rate have on the total cost of the loan.

SeanG79

If you borrowed £30k over 20 years at 9.1% APR, you could expect to pay ± £272 (depending on any admin/document fees, etc.). This would mean over 10 years you will have repaid circa £32k over 10 years and will ultimately repay circa £62k over the 20 year term.

Second Charge Loans secured on property are not regulated and so it is highly likely that the lender will not offer you a reduced settlement figure.

Probably not what you want to hear, nut IMHO the best you can hope for is a slightly reduced settlement figure as a gesture of goodwill on their part.

Mum555pink

Hi I also have an issue with paragon personal finance. I originally took an unsecured loan for £5000 over 5 years many years ago (approximately 1997/98) got into difficulties went to CAB balance outstanding was only £3000 at the time and agreed to repay £60 per month and interest was to be frozen.I paid this faithfully every month for about 4/5 years then increased the payments to £80 per month then 10 years ago approximately it was increased to £120 and have been paying that ever since. They have now transferred the debt to Capquest (a few years ago) and they say I still owe £5088.39! I've worked out on a £3000 debt I've paid back approximately 14,000.00! Surely this is illegal? Can anyone help?

[Deleted User]

Mum555pink wrote: »

I've worked out on a £3000 debt I've paid back approximately 14,000.00! Surely this is illegal?

Surely not, if that's the agreement you signed up to.

Look at your agreement, the total amount payable, and any adjust made through your missed payments, charges and any suspension of interest.

nyermen

As ZX81 said - clearly interest hasn't been frozen. Doing some maths, not knowing the rate but even if I assume you started the £60 reduced payment immediately after receiving the loan, and considering your payment history as described, I have to apply an interest rate of slightly over 17% to come up with that outstanding balance today. If the rate was higher and the payment history slightly different, that can affect things quite a lot. Was there missed payments and maybe charges as well?

Mum555pink

Yes before I went to CAB there were about 3 missed payments but certainly none after the agreement was set up to pay the £60 per month. My problem is I don't have the original agreement as I moved house 10 years ago and must have thrown it out by mistake I only have the letter from CAB that states I owed £3000 in total and that was back in 1999.

poppasmurf_bewdley

Mum555pink wrote: »

Hi I also have an issue with paragon personal finance. I originally took an unsecured loan for £5000 over 5 years many years ago (approximately 1997/98) got into difficulties went to CAB balance outstanding was only £3000 at the time and agreed to repay £60 per month and interest was to be frozen.I paid this faithfully every month for about 4/5 years then increased the payments to £80 per month then 10 years ago approximately it was increased to £120 and have been paying that ever since. They have now transferred the debt to Capquest (a few years ago) and they say I still owe £5088.39! I've worked out on a £3000 debt I've paid back approximately 14,000.00! Surely this is illegal? Can anyone help?

Mum555pink wrote: »

Yes before I went to CAB there were about 3 missed payments but certainly none after the agreement was set up to pay the £60 per month. My problem is I don't have the original agreement as I moved house 10 years ago and must have thrown it out by mistake I only have the letter from CAB that states I owed £3000 in total and that was back in 1999.

Have you thought of doing a CCA request? If the agreement goes back to the late 90's, then it's quite possible the original paperwork for the loan may not exist, and the debt will be unenforceable

You have nothing to lose by making a request, except the £1 cost of the application.