Forged signature on loan agreement

Sim74

I purchased a conservatory back in 2013, paid half finance, half cash and due to earlier issues I had cancelled the original finance agreement and had not been asked to re-apply for a new one.
A couple of weeks after the conservatory was finished I received a welcome pack from Barclays Partner Finance for the start date and payment costs of a loan for the conservatory which I felt were completely unacceptable to myself as it was over a 10 year period and would have to pay over double the amount of the original price back. I approached BPF about this and asked the to send me a copy of the signed agreement, which when It came was obvious it wasn't signed by myself. I raised a fraud complaint with BPF, which somehow they rejected. I then went to a solicitors to see if they could help me out, but again BPF refused to budge. I also got the financial ombudsman involved, but there was not enough evidence for my claim. I was then advised to get a handwriting expert to confirm the signature was forged. Unfortunetely due to unforeseen circumstances I was unable to carry on with my complaint until earlier this year, where I have had it confirmed the signature had been forged. I sent the new information back to BPF but they have refused to except the experts opinion and to refer to their original final letter. I went back to the financial ombudsman, but as BPF refused to open a new investigation, they could do nothing with it as it was past the 6 month period of the original final response.
I am hoping someone on here may be able to help out where I can go next. I know the small claims court is a possibility but I also know I wont be able to recover any of the costs I have put into clearing my name, which just seems out of order seeing as I haven't done anything wrong

Vectis

So, you still owe some of the cost of the conservatory?

Why not simply get a bank loan or overdraft and pay off what you owe?

And, are you honestly saying that someone at Barclays forged your signature on an agreement? This sounds very unlikely.

Sim74

Yes I still owe the money, however having continued paying the loan whilst going through all this for the past 4 years, I still owe around 70% of the original amount and I feel it's not right that I should have to pay all the interest I've had to currently on a loan that I would not have agreed to in the first place. In hindsight I should have just got another loan to pay this off, however I didn't think there would be that much of an issue with a major Bank who supposedly take fraud seriously. Especially seeing there is an obvious difference in my own signature and the one on the agreement.

The signature had been forged by someone at the conservatory company.

EssexHebridean

Someone fraudulently took out a loan in your name yet you've been paying it off?

What have the conservatory company said?

k3lvc

Hopefully the conservatory is attached to your home and therefore you, rather than someone else is making use of it. In which case who are you suggesting is likely to have forged the signature and what did they stand to gain ?

Sim74

The conservatory company were even less help than BPF, I even contacted the police, but they were unable to help either.

The reason why I continued paying it at the time was because I knew I still owed half the cost of the conservatory and as I said above, I thought it would have been a fairly simple issue to have sorted out.

Clive_Woody

Did you offer to pay off the debt to BPF immediately you found out that there was a loan with them?

How did you plan on paying for the other half of the conservatory?

gycraig_2

So you paid half of a conservatory they built it then you found fraud for the other half.

How exactly did you think the other half was gonna get paid ?

Sim74

Due to what BPF were asking for a full payout sum with early repayment costs, I was unable to pay it off immediately.

I have always accepted that I would have pay back some kind of interest no matter who was the loan company was, but I was never given the option to choose.

Alderbank

Sim74 wrote: »

Due to what BPF were asking for a full payout sum with early repayment costs, I was unable to pay it off immediately.

I have always accepted that I would have pay back some kind of interest no matter who was the loan company was, but I was never given the option to choose.

You contradict yourself. Since they gave you a settlement figure, surely you had the option to choose your bank instead or anyone else who would give you a loan?

My reading is that the OP paid half the agreed cost in cash and initially signed up for a loan for the rest. They subsequently cancelled that loan but did not offer any alternative payment for the other half. A loan agreement from BPF then appeared out of the blue for the exact amount and the OP has paid this on time every month for the last four years.

It does sound likely that the double-glazing salesman filled in the BPF loan application when the OP cancelled the first loan, using the information from the original application.

BPF will receive many loan applications from that window company and other similar companies every day. I can't see they did anything wrong in accepting it.

A civil claim against the conservatory company would have to quantify the OP's loss. The signature forgery claim is irrelevant. The OP made no other offer at any time to pay the second half of the agreed bill. They do not say what the 'excessive' APR is but instead of just paying month on month they could have mitigated their 'loss' by replacing the BPF loan with a cheaper one.

Perhaps if the OP could prove they would have been offered a cheaper loan at the time (not easy to do) they might be able to claim for the difference in costs, but they would need to show why they had not taken that course of action at any time during those four years. 'Unforeseen circumstances' would need a bit more detail

Sim74

Alderbank, thank you for your comments and the way you have explained it, no-one has put across some of the points you have made before and has certainly given me a different perspective on the situation.

The settlement figure came after I found out about the loan activating and as previously said , I wrongly assumed it would be a situation that could have been sorted early, so did not even think about taking out another loan at the time.