Ikano Bank help

bowls129

Hi, I’m brand new to the forum and am a little stuck with something with Ikano Bank. Stupidly in August 2018 I missed a payment of £23 and a few pennies and didn’t realise, account was for 4 years and due to end in March 2021. They called me 2 days ago and asked when I could make the missed payment back from 2018, which I did the next day. They went on to say they have charged me £25 per month for 18 months equalling £480 from 1 missed payment. They state they have written to me and I’ve never got back to them, I have never received any letters or spoken with anyone from there. When I took out the loan at DFS they were fully informed that I am a single parent and was claiming benefits (am looking for work but have to work round school holidays as child has SEN, so it’s quite hard to find suitable employment). My question is can they honestly charge me £25 a month for 18 months when I’ve had nothing from them. I live in a house conversion so all mail goes into a communal entrance. I did ask if they have ever sent me anything by recorded / signed for delivery as 18 months seems excessive a period of time when no contact has been made and their answer was no. They also said they suggest I install a locked mailbox to guarantee getting my mail, which isn’t possible due to style of front door. I’m loosing sleep over this as I thought I had just over £350 left to pay on the loan and it’s over doubled due to their fees. This is literally the only payment I have missed and I asked them to check all other payment have gone through fine and they have for nearly 3 years so they could see that normally the payment goes through. I have no idea seeing as it was 18 months ago that I missed the payment as to why I missed it, stupidly on my part and to be honest I don’t scrutinise my bank account on a regular basis, just know I have enough to cover bills and what’s left over after they’ve come out. Please can anyone offer me any advice. I have asked for the charges to be looked at but not holding out much hope of them being reduced. Am also worried this will effect my wanting to move shortly, although I am fortunately mortgage free and new house will be financed through sale of current property and no mortgage needed. 

[Deleted User]

I've had finance with Ikano before and I always received an annual statement.  I'm guessing you weren't receiving these if you weren't getting the late payment letters either.  It's probably a daft question but do Ikano hold the right address for you because it seems very strange that all correspondence to you got lost in the post?

What do the T&C of your loan say about late payments and associated charges?  Check your credit files to see how the late payment has been recorded, not that I think it will impact your house move as you don't need to borrow any money for that.

glennstar

Regardless of the T&Cs I would suggest that £25/month is punitive. For a charge like that to stand they have to justify what they are doing for the money. Maybe they were combing the length and breadth of the country looking for you, spending big £s on CRA companies and such like... if not then I think they will struggle to justify it.
In the first case (as LoL has suggested), contact them and ask them to confirm they have your correct address. Also suggest to them the charges are unjustified (there might be a letter to this effect on Debt Camel - anyone??) and that you want (some of) the charges written off as a good will gesture.
Depending on how that goes I would contact the Ombudsman. I'm assuming this contracts falls into the high cost finance category and there are a lot of rules about cost of finance and associated fees.

Good luck!!

SuperAllyB

Might be worth also querying why they didn't try and contact you by phone earlier?

bowls129

thank you everyone I’m awaiting a call back....