Affordability complaint with FOS - bank statements

GeekieGirlie

I have 2 Newday Credit cards that I have taken to the FOS. I have been allocated my investigator and she is asking for statements for every time I was issued a credit increase. 

So basically 2 and 1/2 years of statements. 

What will they be looking at when they get them? 

I was always in my overdraft and the statements shows more outgoing than incoming every month. For the whole 2 and half years.

Will they be looking at the money coming in each entry transactions?  Do I need to explain where it was from and why?  I had my own wage and also had money coming in from partner as back then we shared bills.  But also each month I’d borrow money off my family and pay it back month or so after. Do I need to explain all the borrowed money transactions when I send the statements? Or just send as it is and if they need to know why I have that payment they’ll ask?

Rob5342

You dont need to explain everything but id point out anything that you think is relevant to your complaint. When i did it they just came back and queried a few transactions. 

MattMattMattUK

GeekieGirlie said:

I have 2 Newday Credit cards that I have taken to the FOS. I have been allocated my investigator and she is asking for statements for every time I was issued a credit increase. 

So basically 2 and 1/2 years of statements. 

What will they be looking at when they get them? 

Whether you could afford the repayments on those cards if you maxed them out. Whether your claimed expenditure on application matched your real world expenditure. Whether your claimed income matched your actual income.

GeekieGirlie said:

I was always in my overdraft and the statements shows more outgoing than incoming every month. For the whole 2 and half years.

That in itself is not the basis of an affordability complaint. If you your outgoings were more than your income because you were spending lots of money on non-essentials, on things that do not show in credit reports, so for example your outgoings exceeded your income but only because you were spending £500 a month on cinema tickets then that is very different to your outgoings exceeding your income because your existing debt repayments were swallowing up the vast majority of your income.

GeekieGirlie said:

Will they be looking at the money coming in each entry transactions?  Do I need to explain where it was from and why?  I had my own wage and also had money coming in from partner as back then we shared bills.  But also each month I’d borrow money off my family and pay it back month or so after. Do I need to explain all the borrowed money transactions when I send the statements? Or just send as it is and if they need to know why I have that payment they’ll ask?

You do not need to explain anything at this stage, you just send them the statements. They may come back with questions, they may not, it depends on what they see. You cannot answer those potential questions until they are asked, so for now all you need to do is send them the statements. 

Just checking, have you previously had this affordability complaint turned down by Newday?

GeekieGirlie

Rob5342 said:

You dont need to explain everything but id point out anything that you think is relevant to your complaint. When i did it they just came back and queried a few transactions. 

Great thank you  

GeekieGirlie

MattMattMattUK said:

GeekieGirlie said:

I have 2 Newday Credit cards that I have taken to the FOS. I have been allocated my investigator and she is asking for statements for every time I was issued a credit increase. 

So basically 2 and 1/2 years of statements. 

What will they be looking at when they get them? 

Whether you could afford the repayments on those cards if you maxed them out. Whether your claimed expenditure on application matched your real world expenditure. Whether your claimed income matched your actual income.

GeekieGirlie said:

I was always in my overdraft and the statements shows more outgoing than incoming every month. For the whole 2 and half years.

That in itself is not the basis of an affordability complaint. If you your outgoings were more than your income because you were spending lots of money on non-essentials, on things that do not show in credit reports, so for example your outgoings exceeded your income but only because you were spending £500 a month on cinema tickets then that is very different to your outgoings exceeding your income because your existing debt repayments were swallowing up the vast majority of your income.

GeekieGirlie said:

Will they be looking at the money coming in each entry transactions?  Do I need to explain where it was from and why?  I had my own wage and also had money coming in from partner as back then we shared bills.  But also each month I’d borrow money off my family and pay it back month or so after. Do I need to explain all the borrowed money transactions when I send the statements? Or just send as it is and if they need to know why I have that payment they’ll ask?

You do not need to explain anything at this stage, you just send them the statements. They may come back with questions, they may not, it depends on what they see. You cannot answer those potential questions until they are asked, so for now all you need to do is send them the statements. 

Just checking, have you previously had this affordability complaint turned down by Newday?

Yes they didn’t uphold it due to never drawing cash, calling them to discuss I was having difficulties or back then never missing payments. So they said I showed no signs of struggling.

ok I’ll just send the statements and see if they need anything further. Thank you  

GeekieGirlie

Rob5342 said:

You dont need to explain everything but id point out anything that you think is relevant to your complaint. When i did it they just came back and queried a few transactions. 

I’m a little worried also. (It’s no fun doing these lol.)

But each time they offered an increase you can wait until the date they increase or accept now. I always accepted it now. I think when you press accept increase it asks if you think your finances will change in future and not be able to afford and obv always put no won’t change that I know of in future, because I thought I’d always be able to manage it. 
Do you think that’s anything to worry about that I accepted them? Not sure if they’ll say due to accepting it won’t be upheld. 

tigergambit

You need to consider whether worrying is likely to help. I appreciate that sounds flippant but you have done incredibly well in a very short time and this is not typically true of the debt industry. Everything normally takes forever and a day - partly because you are one of many thousands, partly because creditors know you will put more pressure on yourself by worrying than they ever could. 

So try not to play along with them. Accept that you cannot change the past and just wait them out without worry if you can. Remember that any delays give you the opportunity to build your emergency fund a little bit more.

GeekieGirlie

tigergambit said:

You need to consider whether worrying is likely to help. I appreciate that sounds flippant but you have done incredibly well in a very short time and this is not typically true of the debt industry. Everything normally takes forever and a day - partly because you are one of many thousands, partly because creditors know you will put more pressure on yourself by worrying than they ever could. 

So try not to play along with them. Accept that you cannot change the past and just wait them out without worry if you can. Remember that any delays give you the opportunity to build your emergency fund a little bit more.

Thank you ☺️ This is so true! They do play on the hope we over think and worry because feels a scary situation..in our heads lol. It’s true all this worry isn’t helping at all, I’ll focus on getting to the goal instead. Thank you again. 

Rob5342

GeekieGirlie said:

Rob5342 said:

You dont need to explain everything but id point out anything that you think is relevant to your complaint. When i did it they just came back and queried a few transactions. 

I’m a little worried also. (It’s no fun doing these lol.)

But each time they offered an increase you can wait until the date they increase or accept now. I always accepted it now. I think when you press accept increase it asks if you think your finances will change in future and not be able to afford and obv always put no won’t change that I know of in future, because I thought I’d always be able to manage it. 
Do you think that’s anything to worry about that I accepted them? Not sure if they’ll say due to accepting it won’t be upheld. 

The FOS do expect lenders to take a lot of the responsibility. You can see the Ombudsman decisions on the FOS website, on some of those people had put false incomes on applications and the Ombudsman found in their favour saying the lender should have done more to check their application.

Their decision will depend on all sorts of things so juat wait and see what they decide. Mine were all quite straightforward, they asked a few questions to clarify things but there was no big interrogation about why I'd done anything. 

GeekieGirlie

Rob5342 said:

GeekieGirlie said:

Rob5342 said:

You dont need to explain everything but id point out anything that you think is relevant to your complaint. When i did it they just came back and queried a few transactions. 

I’m a little worried also. (It’s no fun doing these lol.)

But each time they offered an increase you can wait until the date they increase or accept now. I always accepted it now. I think when you press accept increase it asks if you think your finances will change in future and not be able to afford and obv always put no won’t change that I know of in future, because I thought I’d always be able to manage it. 
Do you think that’s anything to worry about that I accepted them? Not sure if they’ll say due to accepting it won’t be upheld. 

The FOS do expect lenders to take a lot of the responsibility. You can see the Ombudsman decisions on the FOS website, on some of those people had put false incomes on applications and the Ombudsman found in their favour saying the lender should have done more to check their application.

Their decision will depend on all sorts of things so juat wait and see what they decide. Mine were all quite straightforward, they asked a few questions to clarify things but there was no big interrogation about why I'd done anything. 

Great thankyou. Dug all the statements out now so will get them emailed off!

GeekieGirlie

Well had a reply from FOS they didn’t ask me any questions and they have emailed Newday and said it should be upheld. Hoping they agree to it now. 

They recommended they refund all interest and charges and the 8% simple interest. Back to when I first got an increase 2 years ago to now. Although was confused about the 8%. 

They said to 

• Rework account removing interest, fees, charges, and insurances that have been applied

• If the rework results in a credit balance, this should be refunded to Me along with 8% simple interest

• Or, if after the rework there is still outstanding balance NewDay should arrange an affordable repayment plan with Me for the remaining amount. 

Do you think that means if still have a balance don’t get the 8% simple interest added for what they’ve refunded? Wasn’t sure what all that meant or how simple interest works. 

So Newday have 2 weeks to reply to say they agree or why they don’t or if they want to get a final ombudsman (?not sure what that is) to give final decision. 

I was getting charged between £185/200 interest monthly and balances are £8k and £6k but means even though will most likely still have a balance on each my total debt will be so much lower and hopefully I could get it paid off quicker. Just to wait on their reply now.  Feeling little more positive and keeping fingers crossed!