Provident Help Pls

DanTheYiddo

(This is on behalf of my mum who just dont have a scooby about using pc's etc)

(not sure if this is in the wrong section - sorry if it is)

she made the mistake of taking a provident loan (while she was working but desperate)

she lost her job recently (while still owing near on £2000)

she visited CAB who gave some advise about making sure she made some sort of payment to show she was atleast trying etc

so for the past 2 months she has been sending £10 a month to her office via special delivery (which they have been cashing)

she 1st off received a letter from a department in provident based in glasgow

who stated on there system it showed no effort to make payments have been made (they said this was due to her office not updating the system)

so she contacted them to complain, she was then called on wednesday by the area manager (this is after writing three time's to her local office asking them to please ring/write to her which they did neither)

saying she would either have to make a payment of £19 a week or this would be passed to there headoffice who then would use one of two debt collector's/management company's

any idea's what to do as she has been given the weekend to think there offer over ( i no for a fact her benifits wont cover that much as she a single mum with 2 kids)

will the company that her debt gets passed to accept £10 a month

she is real worried and i dont no how to help her as ive not my self been in this situation

am i wrong in thinking that as long as she has shown an effort to pay that a debt collection agency shouldnt need to be called in

loneranger

Tell your mum not to worry -if she hasn't got the money she can't pay -I would advise sending the £10 to her local office and keeping proof of payment, if they send it to a DCA do the same with them.

DanTheYiddo

yea i made sure she sent them special delivery and her statements showed they are being cashed

but according to area manager £10 a month aint enough so she either up's the payment or it gets passed on according to the area manager

loneranger

It doesn't matter if it goes to a DCA -They will have to accept £10 a week if that is all your mum has got to pay them.Don't be bullied!

nearlyrich

I got a letter from Provident yesterday offering me a £300 loan for £9 a week (for 56 weeks) the total repayments would be £504 and it says in rather big letters that's 183.2% APR.

How do they get away with it?

Hope your mum can keep strong and don't let them intimidate her.

Burlesque_Babe

If the payments are less than the minimum amount needed each week/month, then it may well get passed to a DCA. Is there not a local collector who she can make payments to so she can save on the Special Delivery charge? I understand they are paid on a commission basis so they will be happy to take the money from her, rather than her pay nothing at all.

However, all they (the DCA) can do is take what she has and as long as she makes a token payment at the very least, then there is nothing more they can ask of her. They will probably try their utmost to get her to pay more, but if she doesn't have it and pays something regularly then they will just have to wait.

maytaurus

RE; nearlyrich (quote)
''I got a letter from Provident yesterday offering me a £300 loan for £9 a week (for 56 weeks) the total repayments would be £504 and it says in rather big letters that's 183.2% APR.
How do they get away with it?''
I agree ...I would have thought it would be illegal...but evidently not...I think it should be though !
and in my opinion it is definitely immoral !
I couldn't believe the interest rate ! :eek:

mcjordi

its because all charges and interest are upfront

fatbelly

The normal CAB routine where a client with debts to Provident is taken on as a debt client is that we write to the head office in Bradford with a financial statement. The debt is recalled from the local collector and placed with Provi's solicitors CK Edrupt. They are instructed by Provi to process the payment shown on the statement. There is never a problem as long as payments are made.

I can only think that maybe your mum only has the one debt and that that CAB are not taking on single debt cases.

Perhaps you could try another bureau (by phone?) and see if they would agree to take your mum on as a client.

davek1

just a thought here. Your mum is sending payments of £10 per week by special delivery add to that the cost of the postage which according to the post office website is a minimum of £4.30. That makes a total of £14.30 to pay £10.

Now provident have doorstep collectors why not try and agree that you can pay a weekly amount of £15 (just 70p) more than she is actually paying now but on the proviso that one of provident collectors collect the money on a weekly basis.

If they don't like that or wont accept then you have a perfectly reasonable argument for only being in a position to pay £10 per week.

I would follow the conversation up with a recorded delivery letter too, so if it goes further you can demonstarte you have been entirely reasonable.

Whatever else happens they can't get blood out of a stone so ONLY pay what you can afford.

Hope this helps

Dave

DanTheYiddo

thanks everyone for the reply's will print these off and show them to my mum

she did ring her local office who refused to collect the £10 a month

so she was in a lose/lose situation