JD Williams - Asked for a Payment Deferral...

NuttyGooner82

Hello, this is my first post on this forum, so apologies if I mess up on any etiquette.

Like a lot of you, my income has been got by COVID-19, I went online on a JD Williams site, and they were offering payment deferrals for up to 3 months.

The website assured that your credit rating would not be affected, and you wouldn't be charged interest.

So I followed the process online, and I received an email, asking questions regarding the how's and whys, and regarding token payments.

I answered, and explained that I would be back at work and earning as normal from August (bearing in mind, my account was fully up to date).

Since then, I had been inundated with emails, and texts regarding debt consolidation and debt advise. A bit odd, I thought, but I didn't give it much further thought.

So, it was time to make my payment, and I checked my account - I was charged interest - odd, that wasn't meant to happen. So I emailed and queried what was going on, as per their website, I wouldn't be charged interest while on a COVID-19 deferral scheme 

It turns out that they put me on a debt repayment plan instead - which wasn't what I asked for. It also explains why I was receiving texts and emails from debt help agencies.

I have asked whether my credit rating has been affected, as a result of their error, but they haven't come back to me.


This a huge mess, what can I do?

[Deleted User]

I suspect this might have happened as the original payment holidays were only for three months, March, April and May, you said you would be unable to pay until August, an additional three months, so a repayment plan was probably the only option. This may have been communicated badly, what confirmation did you receive when things were put into place?

Credit rating does not mean anything as such, the information will be recorded on your record, which different companies will assess according to their own criteria. In the short term it may have an impact on your ability to borrow, longer term it is unlikely to have any impact.

It is worth asking how much is the amount outstanding and how many months it will take you to clear the total? The sooner you clear it the better as not only will it remove the debt from your credit record, but you will also pay less interest. 

NuttyGooner82

Hi there,

I had paid up to and including June without any problems, I hadn't requested a payment holiday until a fortnight ago, and the website didn't mention help being available for March, April and May only. So, there was no "additional" three months requested.

NuttyGooner82

Sorry, I pressed "post" and not "preview"

The first email I had received acknowledged that my request was a deferral relating to COVID, and asked a few questions.

I responded to the email, asking how much I could afford to pay in the meantime, but it had someone else's signature.

Then a third person responded saying everything was in place.

When I queried the interest and what was going on, a fourth person responded that person #s 2&3 put together a payment plan, and not the deferral, as requested in the initial email 😒

[Deleted User]

@NuttyGooner82
First you should probably be asking them what has actually happened, especially if you have emails with someone else's details in them.

However I do no think this is a huge issue, get it paid off as soon as you can, it will soon become irrelevant as far as lenders are concerned, the key thing is you do not have defaults against your name. Unless you are applying for a mortgage in the next few months it is unlikely to have any impact.

I would see if they will revert it to a payment holiday, but I am not sure it really makes a huge difference overall (unless the interest over three months is a large amount), but you avoided defaults, which is key, the biggest benefit to raising it as an issue is that they may well agree to credit the interest charged. Apart from that I really would not worry about it, it is unlikely to matter in terms of your future lending eligibility, no more than the payment holiday would anyway. 

pmac183

I disagree. The whole point of the payment deferral was an FCA solution where large quantities of customers were going to be in temporary financial difficulties and to ensure that companies acted sympathetically towards it. The FCA were clear that this difficulty should not impact on credit ratings. JD Williams have done there best to avoid giving these. I had to wait four weeks by which point interest was charged, a late payment fee both of which they refused to refund despite there letter saying the deferral has been backdated. To add insult to injury they have now increased the interest rate to 69.9%. I have complained and now referred to the ombudsman. I would suggest you do the same as they have given you something you did not ask for and if a COVID-19 payment deferral was suitable to the circumstances they should have agreed it but unfortunately they are not making that easy as they lose money due to the interest rate they charge.