Could I be removed as guarantor? Amigo Loans

fc92

Part of my reply from the Ombudsman in October in relation to my complaint: 

"We’ve been speaking to Amigo about the cases we’ve been seeing with issues similar to those you told us about in your complaint. In particular, how Amigo looked into your and the borrower’s financial positions before adding you as a guarantor. 

Amigo has now told us it would like to make an offer in full and final settlement of your complaint.  And we wanted to let you know about this offer so that you can decide whether or not you want to accept it.

Amigo’s offer: 

Amigo will write to confirm the full detail of its offer including any amounts due – however, it has told us that it will follow our general approach. This includes:

-        Amigo releasing you from the guarantee, which means you’ll no longer be responsible for paying the current loan going forward, if the borrower can’t pay. 

-        Amigo refunding payments you’ve made as the guarantor (on current and earlier loans), adding interest at the simple rate of 8% per year (less any tax properly due), from the date you paid them until the date of settlement.
-        Amigo removing any negative information about the loans from your credit file.

What happens next:

 As you confirmed during our recent conversation that you’ll accept Amigo’s offer you don’t need to do anything further on

 If we don’t hear from you by this date we will assume you accept the offer and ask Amigo to get in touch with you to make payment. If you need longer to think about this, please let us know."

As stated by someone above:

"A good percentage of complaints about guarantor loans as a whole, not just amigo, have thrown up inadequate income and credit checks by the lender, so its not a technicality, its due diligence not been adhered too. "  - This is 100% correct, and exactly my case. If there were inadequate checks compelted, then you have cause for disagreement. I did come across DebtCamel and used the advice provided initally, but it was not until I got the finacial Ombudsman invovled that my complaint was taken seriously.

Another point, if you are complaining I would advise to make a FOI request and ask for all of your call recording to be sent, as after I had done this even more issues presented themselves in their loan completion.

MinuteNoodles

My neighbour asked me if I'd be a guarantor for her for an Amigo Loan. I said no and then explained the reasons why, including the fact that if they didn't pay I'd be liable, that she would be repaying two and a half times what she borrowed and that if I ended up in the financial crap my house could be at risk. After thinking about it she decided that it wasn't a good idea and we were able to find an alternative way to deal with the problem which actually ended up not needing to borrow any money at all.

onlyfoolsandparking

MinuteNoodles said:

My neighbour asked me if I'd be a guarantor for her for an Amigo Loan. I said no and then explained the reasons why, including the fact that if they didn't pay I'd be liable, that she would be repaying two and a half times what she borrowed and that if I ended up in the financial crap my house could be at risk. After thinking about it she decided that it wasn't a good idea and we were able to find an alternative way to deal with the problem which actually ended up not needing to borrow any money at all.

Lovely story.