Amigo loan sold for First Credit (Intrum?) - please help

Bill11 · 20 April 2020 at 11:35AM

Good afternoon,
Long story short:
1. I took out a loan with Amigo in mid 2015 for a close friend who needed cash. The formal reason given to Amigo was - I wanted to go on holiday (yeah, right, lol). No checks were done on the side of Amigo regarding purpose of the loan and affordability.
2. The loan is in my name and my friend acted as a guarantor as he had property at the time. He was not able to take credit at that time himself due to being already fully loaded therefore asked me to help.
3. My friend was paying the loan, by giving me the money, which I effectively paid to amigo.
4. In early 2018 my friend's circumstances drastically changed to a degree where he couldn't pay anymore. He does not own anything and has no funds now.
5. I did complain to Amigo, tried to explain that I never was the beneficiary of the funds, that I have never received any funds and that they should go after the guarantor, etc etc to no avail.
6. Since August 2018 I was stuck with a loan which I couldn't pay either so entered into arrangement with Amigo for a reduced payment. The arrangement didn't even cover the interest and every month the debt would increase even though I was making payments (amigo refused to freeze interest), i.e. I would pay £100 every month instead of £200 (split by ~170 interest and 30 repayment). Therefore, each month regardless of my payment ~£97 would be added to the debt as interest and currently the loan is about in £3000 in arrears. Amigo did not inform me of this at the time the arrangement was put in place.
7. Today I found out that my loan has been sold to first credit (presumably Intrum?). I did not receive any notification or anything, I found out by accident when trying to make an agreed payment of £100 to Amigo. However, I do note that I did not update my details with Amigo for more than 5 years, so they probably hold old details apart from my mobile. Intrum has not contacted me so far.
8. I note that considering all the payments that were made to Amigo between Mid 2015 - to date, the initial amount of £5,000 borrowed + additional interest was repaid, i..e Amigo definitely made money on their 5,000 loan albeit not as much as they would expect.

Questions:
1. Shouldn't they be certain that I have received a letter that my debt is sold? The address they have on file would definitely get the letters bounced back. Amigo never informed me over the phone either.
2. The debt that was sold - am I still being charged 50% APR on it or is it now just a fixed amount that will not increase?
3. How would be actual amount of debt owed to Intrum be calculated?
4. Do I have any recourse against Amigo? Or is it now just with Intrum?
5. Is there any way of not paying the full debt e.g. paying only 30% off considering that I have already paid in excess of 5,000 initially borrowed?
6. Is the guarantor in the picture? Am I able to shift the debt to his name?
7. Am I charged for any missing payments etc, at the moment? Any interest?
8. If I choose to default on the loan - will they go only after guarantor or both of us? Will my default be registered on the credit file?
9. At present, my credit file shows ~4,500 loan from Amigo - would I be able to pay that to Intrum free of interest split over 24 months?

Please let me know what are my options and whether I have any chance to fight this and what my next steps should be. I am in a position to make payments as per initial agreement with Amigo, but it would kill me mentally if I have to pay £200 x 60 months again, considering all the money that was paid already for the past 4 years.

Thank you for your time reading this and appreciate any help.

Cheers,
Bill

EimearF · 20 April 2020 at 11:49AM

An answer to some questions:
4.What recourse would you have against Amigo? You took out a loan and gave the money to your friend - thats not Amigos problem.
5. You can make an offer to settle the debt and it might be accepted, but you agreed to borrow at a certain interest rate not pay only the capital borrowed.
6. No. Its your loan they chase you first. You need to take this up with your 'friend'.

Your only recourse is to take your friend to the small claims court. He owes you money, you appear to be blaming Amigo for your friend's failure to honour the terms of your deal with him.

Bill11 · 20 April 2020 at 12:12PM

EimearF said:

An answer to some questions:
4.What recourse would you have against Amigo? You took out a loan and gave the money to your friend - thats not Amigos problem.
5. You can make an offer to settle the debt and it might be accepted, but you agreed to borrow at a certain interest rate not pay only the capital borrowed.
6. No. Its your loan they chase you first. You need to take this up with your 'friend'.

Your only recourse is to take your friend to the small claims court. He owes you money, you appear to be blaming Amigo for your friend's failure to honour the terms of your deal with him.

Thanks for your reply.

4. Affordability complaint and suitability concerns - I was essentially missold a highly expensive product with 50% APR to go on holiday, surely that should have been vetted, there were no checks done on affordability either, at that time my bank statement would barely show any income.
5. Amigo has been in a lot of trouble lately, any chance I could use that in my favour? I also believe that's the reason they sold my loan, because it's "toxic". - There are number of complaints to Amigo with this loan, all the story on file, number of times they refused to freeze interest, did not disclose that my debt will keep increasing with reduced payments, gave the loan out without any checks whatsoever, not customer detail review over five years - this all is a good recipe for a juicy FOS complaint with number of FCA breaches in principles, systems and controls and conduct.

I agree, but there is no point taking the guy to the court, he has nothing and it will be pointless.

EimearF · 20 April 2020 at 12:34PM

There is no way they didnt do a credit check of some description on both of your to ensure that the money would be repaid - and as you said it was for a while. They have no way of ensuring you arent lying about what you will use the money on and its not their job to make sure you dont make stupid decisions with the money. I would drop this as all it does is evidence that you fraudulently obtained the loan, which is a problem for you and not them.

Unless they told you they would freeze the interest then why did you believe that any terms would change, you were the one who changed your side of the deal and reduced the amount you paid they continued applying what was agreed in terms of interest.

The company that bought your loan may be will to accept a full and final settlement for a fixed amount. You would have to negotiate the amount with them.

I get you a frustrated and I feel very bad for you as your friend has clearly put you in a terrible position. Hopefully you can agree a full and final settlement that isnt too onerous on you and put the thing to bed.
I hope you friend is very sorry and will make amends in the future when they have some money.

Bill11 · 20 April 2020 at 12:57PM

As much as they can't ensure that someone is not lying, they have to ensure that the purpose and nature of the loan is reasonable and review information on file for any red flags that may indicate potential issues and seek further clarifications.
Omitting the fact that the interest will continue and other relevant information is dishonest behavior on part of the lender. Again, I refer to FCA's conduct and principles of business.
Regarding F&S - any guidance on what can give me a stronger footing when trying to negotiate?

sourcrates · 20 April 2020 at 1:10PM

Bill why have you posted this again ???

EimearF · 20 April 2020 at 1:14PM

Lenders are not life coaches, you are an adult and if you want to take out a 50% loan to go on holiday and you can make repayments then that is your choice. 50% isnt a good interest rate but its not insanely bad, people buy all kinds of rubbish at 40% and no one would bat an eyelid.
Do you have proof they omitted this? Surely it became apparent after one month, did you challenge them if it wasnt as per your understanding of the changes in terms you initiated?
If you think you have a case against amigo then bring it up with the FCA but you should be wary as you have made it clear to Amigo that you lied to get the loan, which could come back on you.

Re F&F settlement it would probably be a good idea to pull together a lump sum of 1-1.5k and say its all you have to offer as an F&F and see if they take it. You have more leverage if you have a pot of money they can get their hands on today instead of a payment plan that you could back out of.

sourcrates · 20 April 2020 at 1:33PM

Just to clarify things from your other thread.

You have 6 months in which to escalate a complaint to the FOS, the time starts once you recieve the final responce to your complaint from the creditor, if that was in 2018, as you state in your other thread, then you are now well out of time, and cannot pursue that complaint any further, it is dead in the water.