Ikano Loan

Nibley99

I am looking to see if anybody has had an issue with Ikano Bank. I wanted to pay off a loan by a deadline of 22/1/22,which would mean I would not be liable for any interest, as it was interest free for 12 months. Three weeks before the due date,i sent a cheque for the full amount of £4777 and thought that was the end of it. However I checked my bank account on 27/1/22 and realised the money had not been taken from my account. Also on the same day I received a statement from Ikano saying I now owe £5208.50, stating that they have now added interest as the loan had not been cleared on 22/1/22. I contacted them today only to be told that they don't accept cheques.
I have now paid the £4777,which is what I owed over the phone today,but would appreciate advice on how to progress a complaint on the interest added,unfairly in my view,
Thanks for reading

SaverRate

Does it state on your terms and conditions of the loan what payment methods they take? Really you should have checked they took payment prior to the 22nd Jan as 3 weeks is a long time!

porkisnotmeat

If they don't take cheques, they don't take cheques.

Unless they've informed you at some point that they do (their website only lists monthly DD and bank transfer as payment methods) then I don't see what basis you have for a complaint.

Nibley99

You would have thought that once they received a cheque with a covering letter, they would have had the courtesy to communicate the fact the cheque was not acceptable.
Also I paid an amount of £10.80 last July on line to set up a method of making a payment,but on two seperate statements this amount was never shown as being taken off,so I did not have the confidence in making a large payment of £4777 on line.

Chris_English

Nibley99 said:

I am looking to see if anybody has had an issue with Ikano Bank. I wanted to pay off a loan by a deadline of 22/1/22,which would mean I would not be liable for any interest, as it was interest free for 12 months. Three weeks before the due date,i sent a cheque for the full amount of £4777 and thought that was the end of it. However I checked my bank account on 27/1/22 and realised the money had not been taken from my account. Also on the same day I received a statement from Ikano saying I now owe £5208.50, stating that they have now added interest as the loan had not been cleared on 22/1/22. I contacted them today only to be told that they don't accept cheques.
I have now paid the £4777,which is what I owed over the phone today,but would appreciate advice on how to progress a complaint on the interest added,unfairly in my view,
Thanks for reading

If you’ve not paid the full amount then the difference will be outstanding, and accruing interest.

You need to check the original terms of your agreement to see what methods of payment thou agreed were acceptable. If a cheque was never allowed then you can’t discharge your commitments by sending one.

What does it say?

impoverishedtraveller

Agreed with the above.

If you asked to pay by cheque and were told that you could, then you would have decent grounds for success.

If you made an assumption that you could pay by cheque, then you can only rely on their goodwill to waive the interest, and saying ‘it’s unfair’ isn’t going to get you much goodwill.

So what was it?

porkisnotmeat

Nibley99 said:

You would have thought that once they received a cheque with a covering letter, they would have had the courtesy to communicate the fact the cheque was not acceptable.
Also I paid an amount of £10.80 last July on line to set up a method of making a payment,but on two seperate statements this amount was never shown as being taken off,so I did not have the confidence in making a large payment of £4777 on line.

I'd have thought in 2022, after years of it being widely reported that cheques are increasingly being accepted less and less, and widespread access to the internet, someone wishing to pay by cheque would check to see if it's accepted before writing one....

It's not clear that they were never going to inform you, but I suspect reuniting you with your (essentially worthless) cheque is probably going to be a fairly low priority for them.

Nibley99

I have been using cheques to pay many of my bills.Surprise surprise I have logged into my online banking this morning to find that Ikano have now cashed my cheque,which they must have been sat on for some time.
Unbelievable, you couldn't make it up.

porkisnotmeat

Nibley99 said:

I have been using cheques to pay many of my bills.Surprise surprise I have logged into my online banking this morning to find that Ikano have now cashed my cheque,which they must have been sat on for some time.
Unbelievable, you couldn't make it up.

Just because you've been using cheques to pay many of you bills doesn't means anyone will or even has to accept them.

It's not really unbelievable that Ikano have now accepted your cheque, once an account goes into arrears you'll find payment options that were previously unavailable will be taken.

As an example when I previously worked for a bank you couldn't make loan repayments by card.  Once you went into arrears, they were more than happy to take a debit card payment to bring it back in line.

Shiba

Ikano are rubbish I'm not surprised to hear they sat on your cheque. Complain if there's been an interest impact on you, and take to FOS if they don't sort it.