Irresponsible lending?

Birminghamboy

Not sure if am allowed to post more than 1 thread so please delete if not... 

I have just posted my SOA on a another thread, outlining our awful position. 

Last year I was approved for a credit card with a 10K limit - mainstream lender.  This was a shock as at the time I was not doing well financially - some missed payments on credit report, overdraft limit exceeded, lots of recent applications etc. All of the eligibility checkers said that I had a 0% chance of getting a credit card or loan.....Natwest approved me. I was also not in a good place mentally at that point and wasn't making sound decisions, although I accept that there is no way that the bank would have known that. 

Looking back this feels like it might have been an example or irresponsible lending. How likely is it that they would uphold a complaint about this?

poppasmurf_bewdley

It's not irresponsible lending.  It's you trying to spend money you haven't got. 

Birminghamboy

poppasmurf_bewdley said:

It's not irresponsible lending.  It's you trying to spend money you haven't got. 

Ok, I appreciate your response but I think it's a bit harsh - I thought that this forum was here to support?

freshstart2023

poppasmurf_bewdley said:

It's not irresponsible lending.  It's you trying to spend money you haven't got. 

Wow..why be so unkind…no need 

Keep_pedalling

Unlikely with a joint income of £120k.

fatbelly

Birminghamboy said:

Not sure if am allowed to post more than 1 thread so please delete if not... 

I have just posted my SOA on a another thread, outlining our awful position. 

Last year I was approved for a credit card with a 10K limit - mainstream lender.  This was a shock as at the time I was not doing well financially - some missed payments on credit report, overdraft limit exceeded, lots of recent applications etc. All of the eligibility checkers said that I had a 0% chance of getting a credit card or loan.....Natwest approved me. I was also not in a good place mentally at that point and wasn't making sound decisions, although I accept that there is no way that the bank would have known that. 

Looking back this feels like it might have been an example or irresponsible lending. How likely is it that they would uphold a complaint about this?

You won't know until you try. It's easier if this is a second card, or if the product was high interest but you can adapt this guidance

https://debtcamel.co.uk/refunds-catalogue-credit-card/

Birminghamboy

fatbelly said:

Birminghamboy said:

Not sure if am allowed to post more than 1 thread so please delete if not... 

I have just posted my SOA on a another thread, outlining our awful position. 

Last year I was approved for a credit card with a 10K limit - mainstream lender.  This was a shock as at the time I was not doing well financially - some missed payments on credit report, overdraft limit exceeded, lots of recent applications etc. All of the eligibility checkers said that I had a 0% chance of getting a credit card or loan.....Natwest approved me. I was also not in a good place mentally at that point and wasn't making sound decisions, although I accept that there is no way that the bank would have known that. 

Looking back this feels like it might have been an example or irresponsible lending. How likely is it that they would uphold a complaint about this?

You won't know until you try. It's easier if this is a second card, or if the product was high interest but you can adapt this guidance

It was my first card with this lender, however a look at my credit report at that point would have shown multiple cards, some above their credit limits all being paid at the minimum level. I was also regularly withdrawing cash from my Barclaycard - at least once per month. I was in a payment arrangement ( I know ) with a payday lender and was massively overdrawn, as I was every single month. It just seems odd that I would have been approved when nobody else would even consider lending to me. I am not expecting it to be written off but It would be helpful if could pay it back at 0%. 

ManyWays

Payday lenders, being heavily overdrawn and often withdrawing cash from another card sound like warning signs that NatWest should not have ignored. I dont know if you would win a complaint though.

Rob5342

I have won a few complaints. The FOS do expect lenders to take some of the responsibility when lending to people. In my experience they become more critical of the lenders decisions when they known more about your, so they'd be less critical about a new account when the lender only had the credit report to look than they would about a third credit increase when you'd had the account for a number of years. It's free to complain so there's no reason not to give it a go. Most of mine were rejected but after persevering with a Nationwide one I got a £16,000 refund and I had a few smaller wins too. Normally the FOS decision is that all interest should be refunded, any negative information on your credit report that resulted from the lending decision should be removed, but that you should repay the money borrowed as you've had use of it. 

steven141

Isn’t it a good thing that they were able to loan you money? Some people with bad credit struggle to get accepted even if they are able to. 

NatWest usually do balance transfer offers so you could maybe get a 0% offer usually with a fee of around 3% and then once your other cards are paid off with the balance transfer you could close them if the limit is enough. 

This will save you money in interest payments for a bit until you can pay it off. I wouldn’t complain to them as they were good enough to loan you money.

sourcrates

steven141 said:

Isn’t it a good thing that they were able to loan you money? Some people with bad credit struggle to get accepted even if they are able to. 

NatWest usually do balance transfer offers so you could maybe get a 0% offer usually with a fee of around 3% and then once your other cards are paid off with the balance transfer you could close them if the limit is enough. 

This will save you money in interest payments for a bit until you can pay it off. I wouldn’t complain to them as they were good enough to loan you money.

Should banks lend irresponsibly?

Banks never act purely in a customers best interests, they follow the bare minimum due diligence dictated by law, but their primary goal is to make the bank money, and that is the mantra they follow.

Oh they may dress it up using fancy words and ethical statements, but there number one priority is to make money for themselves, and most are not too bothered how they do that.

Should people borrow irresponsibly?

Well in an ideal world no, they shouldn't, but when you read posts from those in debt and there very first thought on a remedy is consolidation, then you see that borrowing more money is nearly always the first response to a debt crisis, rather than a last resort, its almost a reflex response, its just how some of us are built.

So the banks are willing to take risks when lending, and we have inbuilt responses to borrow when we shouldn`t, I`d say it was an even split, with both being 50% wrong.