Time to get out of Payday Loan Hell

Wilcouk

So being inspired by people reclaiming money, ive decided i will go and help my credit file out, i currently have around 4-7 defaults on my account which is affecting me still from 2011-2013 and with callcredits ability to see it all, is very annoying.

the companies i owe money to still (rough figures)

247Moneybox - £240
PaydayUK - £450
PaydayExpress - £350 (same company but still)
UncleBuck - £730
MyJar - £450
LendingSt (funnily comes out as !!!!) - £510
Vivus - £240

i went to all these companies and asked... can i pay half the debt down and clear it as "settled" however all rejected, so seeing everyone seemingly doing it, i went to the financial ombudsman and it was pretty clear to see when i was looking back, this really was unaffordable lending, sent myself into a debt spiral, earning a good wage (£1,700 p/m) but yet still spending out nearly £900 on top of other bills in just repayments alone.

LendingSt started off, trying to take me to court by Asset Collections laughably, so i did one better and complained to the FO, LendingSt final response was this

Affordability Checks: We confirm that an affordability analysis is conducted for all customers (existing or new) and on each loan application. Our advanced analytics and underwriting processes review the information provided by the customer, all public information, and details held by Credit Reference Agencies before making a decision.

* Your Experian score was 595 and above. It was factored into our proprietary underwriting and deemed acceptable

they lent me £80 in Feb 2013 and then that shot up to £510 in March, i luckily had my credit report back in Feb 2013, my credit file was all sorts of wrong, terrible infact and my score wasn't 595 it was 465 and at the time i had -

2 CCJ's
14 Defaults
2 Late Payment Accounts

so that's in process with the FO.

247MoneyBox next, i wrote a standard lemplate letter about affordability and taking them to the FO, bearing in mind they wouldn't even give me a discount the last time i spoke to them, wrote this -

I note from your account with us that over the course of our relationship with you have still not repaid us the total amount that has been advanced to your account. Do be aware that, in our experience, it is likely that any third party mediators you may refer your account to may ask you to repay the difference in order that you have at least repaid the total amount that we have funded to your account.

You have borrowed a total of £275 from us. You have repaid a total of £173.28.

That means that, if you disregard any interest or charges that were agreed as part of your contract, you still would need to return funds to us.

We are, however, happy as a gesture of goodwill to resolve by writing off your balance.

Not sure whether i should accept or take them further to the FO and try to reclaim money from them? if i do accept, will they take the default off my Credit File? isit a good idea to just drop and accept it?

The rest i've yet to hear but i hope to finally settle this bad credit period of my life, my recent credit history is actually very good.

sourcrates

Hi,

They won't remove the default, although I have heard of payday loan companies doing this.

You could still progress this to the FOS, you have nothing to lose as there offer to wipe your balance will still stand, but expect a few months delay as the FOS are inundated right now.

EssexHebridean

Personally I would accept that from 247MoneyBox - a bird in the hand being worth 2 in the bush and all that.

*Cross posted with Sourcrates*

PixelPound

Is there a time limit on the discount/writing off offer? Just if you go to FOS, you may win and get some compo, but if you don't would 247Moneybox assume you didn't accept their offer?

The default would stay, but marked as partially satisfied.

Wilcouk

Apparently 247 said they would remove the default from my credit file AND wipe the debt off, i asked the FOS about this and he said to get this in writing/email and copied him in it, if they were willing to remove the default, i would accept as it'll do far better for my credit file but if not money compensation would be more satisfactory,

Nic_c that is what i was thinking, like if i took it further with the FOS i don't want them to think i rejected the offer and then that offer has gone because they may have feel insulted or something.

sourcrates

Wilcouk wrote: »

Nic_c that is what i was thinking, like if i took it further with the FOS i don't want them to think i rejected the offer and then that offer has gone because they may have feel insulted or something.

Your thinking about this as though they are an entity that cares, honestly they won't give two hoots what you decide to do.

Myself I'd probably take what's on offer, as the FOS may just decide they have done enough to appease you !!

Fireflyaway

I'm surprised your score is so good. I have just 2 defaults and some late payments and went down to 94! Didn't even know it could go so low.
I had 7 payday loans at one point. I felt my credit score couldn't get any worse so I chose to default on them all ( not all show on my credit report) and paid £1 on each, then tackled the smallest firsdt and so on. Now they are all gone. Depends what your future plans are. Is getting rid of the debt worth denting your score? For me I felt it was.

Wilcouk

Not sure if my credit score is any good tbh, i would say its very low, where did you see yours was 94?

sourcrates wrote: »

Your thinking about this as though they are an entity that cares, honestly they won't give two hoots what you decide to do.

Myself I'd probably take what's on offer, as the FOS may just decide they have done enough to appease you !!

yeah i think i may just accept, it's a very low payday complaint compared to the others.

I was looking back in my statements and i saw Wonga, however can i still take them to FOS? in 2014 (i think) they wrote off my debt and default from my credit file, i did take a huge bunch of loans with them, must of paid out £1,600 in 5 months with them.

sourcrates

Lots of people are having success at reclaiming interest and charges from these companies, however, its not all plain sailing, there has to be evidence that the loans were unaffordable to you, also the FOS are not consistent in how they deal with complaints, although they should be, it very much depends on the person handling your case, a lot of the time.

I had various loans back in the day, marriage broke up, started drinking heavily, went off the rails for a good few months, took out various PDL`s with many companies, some were declared unaffordable, some were not, anyway, i wish you luck with it, you can only try.

Wilcouk

FOS allowed me to lodge a complaint with Wonga after showing them my statement of unaffordable loans, especially the part where Wonga just helped themselves via Direct Debit to over £650 and i had to borrow £300 again the same day.

247Moneybox have officially confirmed the following

I would like to take this opportunity to write to you to set out our final response to the complaint you raised with regards to your account. As part of this response we have taken into consideration a number of factors including a review of the notes on your account and all correspondence. The courses of events, as we see, are as follows and will provide context to our conclusions.

If you remain dissatisfied, you may refer your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) but you must do so within six months of the date of this final response. Separately, you may also refer the complaint to our trade association (BCCA), this does not stop you taking your complaint to FOS.

Your balance with us has now been written off. This will now be visible in your online account with us.

We will also communicate the amendments required to the credit reference agencies we report to (Equifax and Callcredit). Do allow for some time (approx 30 days) for this to be reflected in your credit file as this is the usual time frames within which the agencies work.

Thanks for your help in bringing the matter to a close.

don't expect all the others to be this straight forward but it's a start!

Fireflyaway

My score showed as 94 with clear score. Pleased after 6 months of being careful ish I am now at 346. I know some people say it doesn't matter but I want to get a mortgage so I kind of think it must play some part.
Its such a good feeling when you get them all paid off.