Fashion World Statement Woes

jaybear77

hi all

i have a credit account with JD Williams under their fashion world brand, due to my minimum payment jumping up to £160.00 i entered into a payment plan for 6 months for £100 a month, my last payment was December 2017 - the same day i made the payment they then raised a new statement, adding on a late payment charge of £12 for November payment being late.

my problem is i get paid the last Friday of every month, sometimes this means a 5 week month, i have contacted fashion world to see if i could change my statement date as i don't always want to be hit with a late payment charge every month. got no where with customer services just the usual standard response our statement cycle is 28 days -tough, i made a complaint as i felt being a month behind and being hit with late payment fees the same month as leaving a payment plan was unfair, final response, tough 28 day billing cycle, for every late payment we will add £12 + interest on remaining balance.

can anyone suggest a way i can get them to play ball or had any experience with these idiots, i am tempted to refer my complaint to the Financial services ombudsman as they are making it so i am going to end defaulting as sooner or later the min payment will be unpayable, , it was £56 a month, paid £90 this month, and still have £70 outstanding due to interest and charges with a new statement on the 17/03.

any helpful advice or pointers would be most helpful,

sourcrates

Hi,

They will not change their billing cycle as it is a lucrative source of income for them in charges.

Best advice is to let the account default, it will be sold on pretty rapidly, usually to Lowell or Cabot, who will be much easier to make arrangements with.

At that point a written complaint should then be sent to JD Williams asking them to refund the charges as you were in financial difficulty at the time.

You could complain now, and you may win, and get some charges refunded, but the billing cycle will remain the same, they will not alter it for anyone, so you will still be back at square one.

Karonher

Could you just allocate the payment as soon as you are paid? Although it is in the account, act as if it was not there and then it will be there whenever payment is due.

Claddagh_Noir

I agree with Karohner. My Barclaycard statement is produced on 26th of the month, payment is due on the 22nd of the following month. So I've set up a standing order payment on the 28th of the month which is my pay day. So it gets paid two days after the statement is made.

pab233

To Karonher & Claddagh_Noir,

Unfortunately It's not that simple with accounts like these. They run on a 28 day billing cycle rather than the normal monthly cycle of credit cards. This means that you have to make 13 payments per year rather than 12, so not only is the payment date not the same each "month", there is one calendar month every year where you have to make 2 payments. It seems to be quite common with catalogue companies, probably because, as Sourcrates says, it's a very lucrative source of income. Whilst the T&Cs always state this, who reads them?

D_M_E

If you know there's £70 left to pay, pay it off at or before receipt of the next statement then close the account.

As has been said this is how they make most of their money through the fees and charges incurred by using a 28 day cycle - I suppose this is because a 28 day cycle is what applies to a lot of benefit payments.

John-K_3

sourcrates wrote: »

Hi,

They will not change their billing cycle as it is a lucrative source of income for them in charges.

Best advice is to let the account default

Of course it is not the best advice.

Best advice is to find a way to build up a buffer so that you do not have to miss payments. Can you take on extra work, or sell something?

Yes, it will be hard, but you will be doing yourself no favours by defaulting.

sourcrates

John-K wrote: »

Of course it is not the best advice.

Best advice is to find a way to build up a buffer so that you do not have to miss payments. Can you take on extra work, or sell something?

Yes, it will be hard, but you will be doing yourself no favours by defaulting.

The OPs credit will already be effected because she has not paid it since December.

I suspect if she could find extra funds, she would do so, once a debt is sold on, all charges and interest will stop.

It is rare people have only one debt, usually there are more, in that senario getting the charges stopped is the priority, and the only other path to that goal, if complaining has not worked, is to default.

Windofchange

Surely there is a difference between missing a payment or two and defaulting though? To expand upon John's post, why is the advice on this part of the forum consistently to just give up, walk away, default? How dare companies demand what is owed to them! We're talking about 70 quid by the sounds of things. Sell some of the clothes on eBay? Put in some extra hours at work? Take on a Saturday job or some other form of extra employment?

sourcrates

Windofchange wrote: »

Surely there is a difference between missing a payment or two and defaulting though? To expand upon John's post, why is the advice on this part of the forum consistently to just give up, walk away, default? How dare companies demand what is owed to them! We're talking about 70 quid by the sounds of things. Sell some of the clothes on eBay? Put in some extra hours at work? Take on a Saturday job or some other form of extra employment?

I read it it as having £70 outstanding from her last statement.

The OP does not say what her total balance is, I am assuming it may be a lot, if it was only £70 obviously you would both be right.

Allow me if you will, to explain my reasoning here, catalogue companies work on the 28 day statement basis, most people these days are monthly paid, so if there struggling, they tend to fall foul of the £12 a time charges they impose.

A lot of these customers have quite large debts to these companies, and usually more besides, they are notorious for offering unaffordable payment plans, and refusal to refund or suspend charges, so the customer just gets deeper in debt.

That is why it is sometimes best to just remove the catalogue company from the equasion altogether, then deal with the debt purchaser who buys it, who will be much more reasonable with regard to payment plans.

It is not about not paying it, its about making the situation better for the debtor.

Windofchange

I think that the OP was paying £160 a month as a minimum payment and this was adjusted to £100 a month by the looks of things and here we are still struggling a few months down the line. I would agree with you in that I too assume that this is likely part of a far wider issue, as presumably someone in (? full-time) employment would be able to find £70 in a month?

If we assume that there are a host of credit cards, Argos accounts, payday loans etc etc behind this then maybe your advice still stands, and a more general default / bankruptcy is going to happen anyway. I guess these companies need to have such back breaking interest rates and payment plans to account for the amount of people who spend beyond their means and do a runner owing however much? I guess that is a discussion for another thread.