Hard Footprint credit searches mistakenly left on my profile

cjmillsnun

houdini1976 wrote: »

No, my advice is from personal experience only. I am not qualified to give financial advice. But , if a company has willingly offered you £75 before you have even uttered a word, then I would say they are trying to prevent bigger claims .

But these are for hard searches. If you didn't apply for credit within 6 months of these, your loss is zero, therefore £75 is a bonus.

TheBanker

Blue26 wrote: »

Again, this is only a suspicion, but I would imagine they are offering a nominal compensation fee (£75) and in doing so are asking customers to sign to say they will not take further action against the higher losses.

I think if you want to make a complaint, you would have to prove that you had suffered by more than £75. So you would need proof that:
1) You applied for other credit during the period in question
2) As a result of these searches, the application was either declined or approved at a higher rate than it would otherwise have been.

Proving (2) is going to be virtually impossible since the other lender won't disclose how their scoring system works. Remember that if you had active Payday Loans, these would be reported on your credit file anyway, so in these circumstances it is unlikely that a few additional searches have done much harm.

Of course, once you reject their offer of £75, they are obliged to investigate. But if their investigation concludes that you have not suffered any actual loss, they are not obliged to pay you £75.

I think the £75 is their way of minimising their costs since carrying out individual assessments would be far more costly, even if the conclusion was nobody had lost out and therefore no compensation at all needed to be paid.

Paul_Woods

My wife got a similar letter. When I chatted with the Police Action Fraud helpline their advice was not to give them any bank details but to ask them to send a cheque made out in her name, as there was a possibility that the letter had come from a scammer (especailly as the PO Box they wanted you to reply to was completely different from the address given on their letter. Even if its not a scam, they apparently charge interest rates of around 2500% p.a. so they are sharks! Beware!!!!

Blue26

Paul_Woods wrote: »

My wife got a similar letter. When I chatted with the Police Action Fraud helpline their advice was not to give them any bank details but to ask them to send a cheque made out in her name, as there was a possibility that the letter had come from a scammer (especailly as the PO Box they wanted you to reply to was completely different from the address given on their letter. Even if its not a scam, they apparently charge interest rates of around 2500% p.a. so they are sharks! Beware!!!!

This post had me a little worried, however, I took the advise of others in this thread and gave the details of a savings account rather than my current account and the £75 was credited within 5 working days (the letter states within 10 so I suspect it may take longer for others).

eleda3

I've also received this letter, but I've had no dealings with Dollar UK or any of their companies. I've spoken with Citizens Advice, the FCA and Dollar UK themselves and am getting nowhere. The FCA have confirmed it is a legitimate letter at least.

Dollar UK were quite unhelpful on the phone, telling me they don't know where my details would have come from. They suggested third-party websites e.g. comparison sites, but credit-wise I've only applied for two credit cards in my life, no loans, much less payday loans, so I don't see how this can be. Of course they won't tell me more than this or suggest that they've somehow misused my information.

I don't know if I should take it further as I believe they shouldn't have had my information in the first place.

Hinge123

Has anyone rejected the offer? Is so what happened? Thanks

[Deleted User]

They would have £75 less in their bank account.

Hinge123

Seems to be a legit letter

Mixin1269

I work in financial services and i can 100 percent confirm this is genuine. And also just a quick note for reference on all the people saying account number and sort code is enough to scam you. I can assure you it's not. A name . Account number and sort code will only give enough access to deposit funds. And tbh most banks now won't allow that either with that info. It's a myth that funds can be extracted purely on them details.

sourcrates

If you all had asked on the DFW forum, payday loan refunds have been going on for the last 2/3 years, its nothing new.

This particular company are only offering you compensation for leaving a credit footprint, this has nothing to do with the mis-selling of unafordable payday loans, and acceptance of their offer will not prejudice any other complaint you wish to make.

If you have concerns, ring them, they are FCA regulated, so have to be truthful, and your bank details can only be used for one purpose, to put money into your account.

Full guide to reclaiming interest and charges on payday loans for free, yourself, here :

https://debtcamel.co.uk/payday-loan-refunds/