Please help £75k debt!

Lighthouse81

Perfect thank you! Just going to go for it then, when I start receiving the letters I will come back on here for further advice on what to do. Thanks for everyone’s help 

enthusiasticsaver

I would close all joint accounts. 

Credit card companies and mortgage lenders are different departments so defaulting on loans and credit cards won't affect your mortgage. You will need to stick with Nat West though. 

Lighthouse81

Thanks enthusiastic, just the answers I was looking for! 

Lighthouse81

Just wanted to post an update on here - me and my partner have opened up seperate bank accounts now with unrelated banks, I have moved over my salary due to be paid this week and DD’s for all priority debts and cancelled all DD’s for my unsecured loans and credit cards , we have gone through an SOA together to get a realistic budget so we know what we can save in an emergency fund ( the first month we are going to use to clear her Monzo flex account) I have contacted the NHS for gambling help, though I am 3 weeks clean I want to make sure I have the tools in place going forward to not get into this situation again.
We have agreed to do monthly meetings together to discuss finances, spending and anything coming up that we need to make sure we have budgeted for.

i have put an affordability complaint in for my Monzo loan and her Monzo loan ( which we will be continuing to pay)

the direct debits I have cancelled and will be defaulting on 

credit cards, Tesco, Vanquis, NatWest and barclaycard

very & novuna finance ( this is for my electric car charger it’s £36 a month and payments don’t start until Jan 2026 so I do default this as it’s later than others and will take longer or just re set up the DD and start paying in Januaey

Ikano ( ikea furniture) 

Monzo loan, Monzo flex and my overdraft.

does this all look ok? Then I assume I just save and wait for defaults to come in to arrange affordable repayments and that’s that? 

Thanks for all the advice so far

BrilliantButScary

Well done for accepting you have an addiction and wanting to do something about it. You may find the following link useful:

https://www.epicrestartfoundation.org/

The best of luck on both your journeys.

Lighthouse81

Hi all, just an update on where I am at, so most importantly I have abstained from gambling for two months now and life is a lot better, me and my partner have created a budget that we using and have started an emergency fund. We have stopped paying non priority debts and started to have calls/ letters which currently I am just ignoring. I mentioned before I tried for one affordability complaint with Monzo, which I have an approx 14k+7k interest loan with, 5500 flex account and a £1500 overdraft and have had a reply back for them and want some advice what to do next, because ultimately I would like to claim back as much interest as possible including taking the interest off of the loan.

See details below 

You applied for the following lending:

An overdraft with a limit of £500 on 7 April 2021 and subsequent limit

increases on your overdraft between £100 and £2000 between 1 August 2021 and 18 December 2021.

A Flex with a limit of £1100 on 16 December 2021 and a limit increase on your Flex to £5500 on 18 April 2023.

A loan with a net principal of £2500 on 30 April 2022.

An overdraft with a limit of £2000 on 30 April 2023.

A loan with a net principal of £250 on 24 September 2023.

An overdraft with a limit of £1000 on 14 April 2024 and a limit increase onyour overdraft to £1500 on 3 January 2025.

A loan with a net principal of £3500 on 25 May 2024.

A loan with a net principal of £7000 on 8 September 2024.

A top up loan of £14,991.22 on 31 March 2025.

We have reviewed these applications using the information you provided, and the

data that we received from the credit referencing agency, including income,

expenditure and other debt commitments.

Upon manual review, we did not find any signs of irresponsible lending for the

below applications during our review:

●

Your overdraft limit of £500 on 7 April 2021 was affordable based on the Monthly Affordability Capacity of £149.65.

●

Your Flex limit of £1100 was affordable based on the Monthly AffordabilityCapacity of 

Your loan of £2500 to be repaid in 18 months, in instalments of £169.61 with the final instalment being £169.17 was affordable based on the Monthly Affordability Capacity of £207.07

Your Flex increase to £5500 was affordable based on the Monthly Affordability Capacity of £690.14.

Your overdraft limit of £2000 on 30 April 2023 was affordable based on the Monthly Affordability Capacity of £231.80.

Your loan of £250 to be repaid in 12 months, in instalments of £24 with the final instalment being £15.21 was affordable based on the Monthly Affordability Capacity of £67.77.

Your overdraft limit of £1000 on 14 April 2024 was affordable based on the Monthly Affordability Capacity of £93.78.

Your loan of £3500 to be repaid in 43 months, in instalments of £120 with the final instalment being £18.20 was affordable based on the Monthly Affordability Capacity of £121.46.

Upon further manual review, we determined that the following applications should not have been approved based on the information we held for you at that time:

Your subsequent limit increases on your overdraft between £100 and £2000 between 1 August 2021 and 18 December 2021.

●

Your loan with a net principal of £7000 on 8 September 2024.

●

Your overdraft limit increase to £1500 on 3 January 2025

●

Your top up loan of £14,991.22 on 31 March 2025.

Given the above, we would like to refund the interest that you have paid on your overdraft between the overdraft increase on 1 August 2021 to 7 December 2022 as you had closed your overdraft and also the interest that’s been applied to your overdraft from 3 January 2025 till today. We would also like to refund the interest that you have paid on your loan of £7000 from 8 September 2024 and your top up

loan of £14,991.22 on 31 March 2025, plus an additional 8% on top of this. This is

a total of £1,659.54 broken down below:

£624.17 is the interest you have paid on your overdraft between 1 August 2021 to 7 December 2022.

£175.37 is the 8% interest calculated on the above overdraft interest refund.

£376.68 is the interest you have paid on your Flex account since 3 January 2025

£12.15 is the 8% interest calculated on the above overdraft interest refund.

£440.62 is the interest you have paid on your loan for £7000 since 8 September 2024.

£30.55 is the 8% interest calculated on the above loan interest refund.

We will also ask our Specialist team to refund any interest you have paid on your top up loan of £14,991.22 since 31 March 2025 to be credited back directly to the loan.

Please note that £1000.85 has been credited to your Monzo bank account to reduce your overdraft limit to £555.

The amounts of £175.37, £12.15, £440.62 and £30.55 (total £658.69) will be

credited to an account of your choosing in line with our final response letter.

We will also ask our financial health team to reach out to you to arrange a repayment plan for your top up loan.

As the overdraft interest refund has brought you back within the limit which was last affordable, interest will continue to be charged on your overdraft going forward. If you are experiencing difficulties or feel this amount could be difficult to manage, our Financial Health team will be more than happy to work with you tocome to an arrangement that meets your needs. If you’d like to discussarrangement options, please reach out to us via the in app chat or your preferred method and a member of our team will be happy to help.

My questions are obviously Monzo have stated that they shouldn’t have lent to me, so is it worth me taking it further to see if I can get more interest taken off as they are refunding me interest I have paid but I’d like to try and get all interest removed if I could so I only repay the capital I borrowed, if so what do I do next?

I also used this account for gambling which was my reason behind my affordability complaint as based on my transactions there should have been suspicion on lending to me due to my obvious issue

is it worth putting affordability complaints with my credit cards as I didn’t use these to gamble.

Thanks as always for you time 

wolveswolves29

that’s probably as good as you’re going to get off them , they also should take it off you’re credit scores I have a loan witch they upheld for unfordable lending and they just contact me once a year for a payment plan I just say nothing has changed so just slowly chipping away at least you can put that debt to the back of your mind and crack on with the rest mate 

ManyWays

What a chaotic and confusing response (but that may have been you pulling bits out of a much longer email?) and I have read it twice.

Sorting out the accounts separately.

The overdraft.

"we would like to refund the interest that you have paid on your overdraft between the overdraft increase on 1 August 2021 to 7 December 2022 as you had closed your overdraft and also the interest that’s been applied to your overdraft from 3 January 2025 till today. 

£624.17 is the interest you have paid on your overdraft between 1 August 2021 to 7 December 2022.
£175.37 is the 8% interest calculated on the above overdraft interest refund.

£12.15 is the 8% interest calculated on the above overdraft interest refund.

As the overdraft interest refund has brought you back within the limit which was last affordable, interest will continue to be charged on your overdraft going forward."

I cannot actually see a line saying what the overdraft refund is between Jan 25 and now. Is it in there somewhere?  The reference to a second lot of 8% interest on the overdraft refund suggest it should be there but in your post that line comes immediately below a line about a flex refund. 

If you cannot see this Jan-now amount anywhere, I think you should ask Monzo why not.

They ask you where you would like to have £658 credited to.  I suggest that enough to clear the overdraft is your best place, as you are in the process of defaulting on accounts as soon as possible, and overdraft accounts can default incredibly slowly. So getting this cleared now would be good and simplifying going forwards. 

ManyWays

The flex card

"£376.68 is the interest you have paid on your Flex account since 3 January 2025"

I assume they are refunding that. You may have a reasonable case for sending this bit to the Ombudsman and asking for a refund of all charges since 2021 when it was opened. 

Can you look back and see how much you were charged in interest before Jan 25?

The loans

"We would also like to refund the interest that you have paid on your loan of £7000 from 8 September 2024 and your top up loan of £14,991.22 on 31 March 2025, plus an additional 8% on top of this. This is a total of £1,659.54 broken down below: 

£440.62 is the interest you have paid on your loan for £7000 since 8 September 2024.
£30.55 is the 8% interest calculated on the above loan interest refund.

We will also ask our Specialist team to refund any interest you have paid on your top up loan of £14,991.22 since 31 March 2025 to be credited back directly to the loan.

We will also ask our financial health team to reach out to you to arrange a repayment plan for your top up loan."

So 440 + 30 does not equal 1659. Perhaps the extra is coming from the interest you have paid to date on the top up loan. 

What is not clear, and you MUST get this sorted out, is whether the loan going forward will be interest-free. So they are taking off interest already charged and saying no more will be added.

This is what they should do, and if they arent saying this, then this needs to go to the Ombudsman. You cannot rely on future interest being stopped when you deafult on a loan, as some lenders say it was all due from the start.

Lighthouse81

Thanks Manyways, now you mentioned it it doesn’t make sense but think I may have cracked it,

They mentioned they were refunding on my flex account but I don’t think that is the case at all as they deemed that affordable.

i think where they have written my flex account they meant my overdraft from Jan 2025

They haven’t confirmed the total interest paid on my top up loan, nor that I’ll pay no further interest on the £7000 loan or my top up loan which I have asked for clarification as they upheld that as being unaffordable and are refunding me interest to date so surely shouldn’t charge me any more interest? 

The total they have put is £1659 ( overdraft + loan interest refund and £75 compensation) I agree with you they have paid the £1000 into my Monzo overdraft already I will ask them to put the remaining £734 into that account also to clear my overdraft, I am happy in regards to the loan if they charge me no further interest and I only owe the capital borrowed. Can I just take the fact that they aren’t refunding anything on my flex to the financial ombudsman as I made a lot of cash withdrawals on that to fund my gambling and was paying a transaction fee every time, the reason I took the loans was ultimately to clear that. Or do you think I should accept what they offered and move on? If I do ask for them to put the money in that they have offered does that then mean I can’t take anything further as in accepting it as f&f settlement? 

Thank you