Can a bank change your loan without telling you?

Mackone

Hello, looking for some advice.
A strange thing happened tday when I called the bank to try a re-arrange what I thught was my career development loan payment; I was told this is a personal loan, not a CDL. I have asked them to send me a copy of the signed credit agreement as I d not recal taking out or transferring loan terms.

To add salt to the wund he said that if had been a CDL we could have changed the payment date and reduced the amount if needed, but with a personal loan this means they cant chnage the SO date. I only needed 5 days but wanted to set it to the date in future for all payments.

I ended up cancelling the SO and left it at this for now.

Any advice re what has happened and how is the best way to deal with a missed payment; it makes no sense to me why they cant just alter the payment date for 6th instead of the 2nd, but no they can't do that. I asked for it to go out every 4 weeks as the money for the loan drops in this way - and apparantly this couldnt be done either? He said if we did it like this it wuld be considered that you paid too much and charged for this because we work month by month / set day each month - eh? This makes no sense to me at all with tdays technology.

TBH they've left me feeling like the best thing to do would be to get debt help, as I hear I could get the interest frozen and set up a payemnt figure that I can afford - a figure much lower - is this right?

Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.

sourcrates

Basically what they are telling you is that if the repayment date is set at the date you requested, computer will assume you are one month in arrears, as it takes you into the following month, hence why they cannot do it.

PixelPound

charged for paying too much? Who is the bank with and what do T&C state about how overpayments are handled.

Mackone

Nope still dont get why they cant change the date by 5 days and set this up for all future payments.

Mackone

Yes, Coop, guess they dont want me to finish paying it off early do they? that it is set to once a month with interest calculated? They will only set up payment for once a month every 2nd; wont do every 4 weeks so it lands on a weds every time. I dont know what the TCs are, Ive asked for a copy of the credit agreement to be sent, as I cant recall taking out a personal loan, only a career development loan.

D_M_E

Why not stick to their schedule:

1. open a second current account.
2. move their payment dd or whatever itis to the new account
3. make sure the 1st payment is there ready to be taken.
4. set up a standing order on your old account to pay XX on YY date - where XX is either before or after the 1st payment is to be taken from your new account, your choice - and every 4 weeks thereafter.

Your payments will continue to be made as they want and meanwhile every 13th transfer made by you to the new account should be available to either save and/or put towards an early settlement.

Gaz83

Mackone wrote: »

Yes, Coop, guess they dont want me to finish paying it off early do they? that it is set to once a month with interest calculated? They will only set up payment for once a month every 2nd; wont do every 4 weeks so it lands on a weds every time. I dont know what the TCs are, Ive asked for a copy of the credit agreement to be sent, as I cant recall taking out a personal loan, only a career development loan.

Or, and bear with me, it could be that literally 99.999999% of their customers are happy paying monthly (as is the case with pretty much any personal loan I've ever heard of) and they simply don't have a system to pay four-weekly?

boo_star

Mackone wrote: »

Yes, Coop, guess they dont want me to finish paying it off early do they? that it is set to once a month with interest calculated? They will only set up payment for once a month every 2nd; wont do every 4 weeks so it lands on a weds every time. I dont know what the TCs are, Ive asked for a copy of the credit agreement to be sent, as I cant recall taking out a personal loan, only a career development loan.

The rules for CDLs were set by the DfE if I remember correctly.

The bank can ask for, but would often not be granted, any leeway when it comes to repayments.

I dealt with a few of them and it was a nightmare, not least because we would have been flexible if it'd been one of our own loans, but had our hands tied by the government.

Ben8282

To be honest have never heard of a loan being repaid 4 weekly as opposed to monthly. Never.
Also highly unusual for a loan to be paid by standing order as opposed to direct debit.
Cancelling the SO was extremely foolish. Why did you not simply change the standing order date yourself through online banking?

mcpitman

Ben8282 wrote: »

To be honest have never heard of a loan being repaid 4 weekly as opposed to monthly. Never.

Yorkshire bank used to do this (13 payments a year), but I am going back 15-20 years when I worked in retail and got paid 4 weekly.

PixelPound

Mackone wrote: »

Nope still dont get why they cant change the date by 5 days and set this up for all future payments.

Because it would be a late payment. You signed an agreement and expected to keep to it. As you don't seem to have money left 5 days before you get paid, I assume you rely getting your wage on time and have low funds before payday.

Even if not, lets for instance say you are someone who budgets their money but has little or nothing left by time next payday comes. Then what if your boss told you just before you were due to get paid at the end of November or beginning of December that they are going to move your pay day back a week so that the following one will be after christmas because payroll staff want to be off longer over christmas. Your boss isn't asking you but telling you and wonders why you have a problem with going from having two wages before christmas to just the one. Sure maybe you don't have a lot of spare money and rely getting wage on time to pay everything so a week late will mean a week without money for food, never mind bills, but the payroll staff want to take some extra holiday over christmas, and the boss is happy to wait the extra week for his - it is the time for goodwill and all that so doesn't understand your fuss.

Many loan agreements have monthly installments as the T&C. Many of the suggestions here are reliant on you having money for an extra payment, since I doubt the bank have any real problem with you paying extra, so once you are in front then paying 4 weekly isn't the issue, you just want to pay 5 days late. TBH if you are wanting to pay 4 weekly in 2 payment cycles your pay will be ahead of the monthly pay date so you should then be able to do SO 4 weekly as the payment will be there. You can surely understand that before then they are not going to allow you to pay late because its better for you - you wouldn't accept the same from your employer would you?