Vulnerable Adults - Rules for obtaining a loan??

leachio

Hi,

I am a police officer and work as a Vulnerable Victim Officer (VVO). I recently dealt with a case involving a Vulnerable adult who somehow managed to obtain a loan of £5000 from the Halifax.

I hve not managed to obtain the agreements etc as yet but it is believed that he went to the Halifax alone, asked for the loan and signed the documentation alone. He subsequently gave the money to a friend so she could do repairs on er sons caravan. I have no doubt that he was manipulated into obtaining the loan by the 'friend' but its going to be difficult to secure a conviction.

Getting back to the question - Are there rules or guidelines that the lenders must follow when lending money? The Vulnerable adult has no job and his only income is benefits. He has had credit cards etc before (all of which were maxed out) and i imagine his credit rateing is bad. I find it hard to believe that they were acting lawfully by giving a Vulnerable Adult £5000 with no means of paying it back. He is vulnerable by means of Mental Health and age.

Any help or info would be greatly recieved, he currently has to pay them £76 a week for the loan and only gets £114 to live on. Is there any way that Halifax have broken the rules in giving him the money? and any way that he can apply to have the loan cancelled?? I cant imagine they did any checks on him.

Like i say, i believe he did it all on his own without an appropriate adult or guarentor. Its obvious that he has mental health issues, surely the Halifax have been naughty??

Thanks in anticipation.

MYLITTLESISTERLOLA

I am a lender with a different financial institution and I find this terribly disturbing. The income and expenditure couldn't look right if he has other debts to repay and such a small income. If it is obvious the person has mental health issues this is a disgrace, I am unsure of the legal position but it seems highly immoral. Someone obviously worried about targets never mind the customer. If this is the way they lend out money their balance sheet can't be too healthy !!!
Simply outrageous
Hopefully someone with more of a legal background will be along shortly to give more info.

Incisor

leachio wrote: »

Hi,

I am a police officer and work as a Vulnerable Victim Officer (VVO). I recently dealt with a case involving a Vulnerable adult who somehow managed to obtain a loan of £5000 from the Halifax.

I hve not managed to obtain the agreements etc as yet but it is believed that he went to the Halifax alone, asked for the loan and signed the documentation alone. He subsequently gave the money to a friend so she could do repairs on er sons caravan. I have no doubt that he was manipulated into obtaining the loan by the 'friend' but its going to be difficult to secure a conviction.

Getting back to the question - Are there rules or guidelines that the lenders must follow when lending money? The Vulnerable adult has no job and his only income is benefits. He has had credit cards etc before (all of which were maxed out) and i imagine his credit rateing is bad. I find it hard to believe that they were acting lawfully by giving a Vulnerable Adult £5000 with no means of paying it back. He is vulnerable by means of Mental Health and age.

Any help or info would be greatly recieved, he currently has to pay them £76 a week for the loan and only gets £114 to live on. Is there any way that Halifax have broken the rules in giving him the money? and any way that he can apply to have the loan cancelled?? I cant imagine they did any checks on him.

Like i say, i believe he did it all on his own without an appropriate adult or guarentor. Its obvious that he has mental health issues, surely the Halifax have been naughty??

Thanks in anticipation.

Well, sorry to say this, but your approach to this is typical numpty police and numpty CPS. You want a conviction. Doubtless as a VVO, you are concerned for the victim, and rightly so. But at an organisational level, you are out to convict the woman who exploited this person. By doing so, you are covering over the real cause of the problem, which is that the BANKS are exploiting vulnerable people to the same extent as the woman is exploiting the vulnerable person in this case.

If you convict the woman, then the bank stand a fair chance of recovering their money from her, which is a waste of everyone's time. Really, the bank should be left to make a loss, because if this happens enough, they will find that lending to the vulnerable is unprofitable and the scope for this sort of crime will come to an end.

I have no doubt that a conviction will look good for the statistics of the CPS and the Police, but this would be hypocritical, because the crime arises from someone in the bank trying to make their own statistics look good.

sharon59

My SIL has learning difficulties and l am classed as her Appointee for recieving access to Dss and the bank.It is a regular occurance that she recieves letters telling her that she has a guarenteed Barclay loan waiting for her or a Barclaycard.It really worries me as if l was so inclined l could get one in her name with no questions asked-despite the Bank having knowledge of her learning difficulties.It seems much to easy and open to abuse the vunerable.

regularsaver1

As a police officer, contact halifax's police liasion department as they will be able to discuss with you, but a branch will not be able to do so.

I am very surprised that this person got a loan and you HAVE to have a job to get a loan with Halifax, which can be supported by other income and some benefits can be taken into consideration in additional to salary. or be retired with pension income.

credit scoring and affordability checks would have need to be supported, but if had a good relationship, may not have needed to proive this and it depends what information was give as part of application if other person was present at the time. if he had a good conduct on his accounts with them, he could be guaranteed, but an affordability check would need to be done

its a difficult one, because in order to apply for a loan the applicant would need to be able to give information in order to apply, which he must of done, and been able to sign the application. they can;t discriminate, but the rules are he must have a job

it is also worrying that he had credit cards, how did he get them, what did he spend on. was anyone poa for him

regularsaver1

sharon59 wrote: »

My SIL has learning difficulties and l am classed as her Appointee for recieving access to Dss and the bank.It is a regular occurance that she recieves letters telling her that she has a guarenteed Barclay loan waiting for her or a Barclaycard.It really worries me as if l was so inclined l could get one in her name with no questions asked-despite the Bank having knowledge of her learning difficulties.It seems much to easy and open to abuse the vunerable.

you can stop marketing by mail and other means

mountainofdebt

Under the Mental Capacity Act doesn't financial instutions have to assume that the person has capacity to make such a decision?

regularsaver1

this is the requirement to apply for a loan from the website which clearly states must be in paid employment:

http://loansdetails.co.uk/UnityMicrosite/HFX/ApplyNow.aspx?source=halifaxcouk&responseCode=HFXEXI&simigvis=MC40OTkuNzU0NTQzOTg0MDQ4OC4xMjAxMjk3MjYwNjUx*

I know from the computer system that if unemployed is put into it , it will automatically decline, so it cocerns me what was keyed

kate705

Hi,

My Mother was vulnerable due to age and mental health. The loan was taken when she was discharged from hospital and on strong medication. Despite psychiatrists reports showing that she was not in a fit mental state to sign the loan the particular case of undue influence was not upheld by the FOS.

I took the case forward on my own as I didn't know about this forum and we couldn't afford a lawyer (!)
I don't know much about the law but you have to show that the lender should have been 'put on inquiry' ie that it should have appreciated at that time the need to take steps to counter the vul adults' consent being obtained by undue influence. They will say that they could not have known that anyone was influencing him.

I found this difficult to pursue on her behalf even with medical evidence and the support of the psychiatrist. In my opinion this type of financial abuse of the elderly or ill is so hard to prove especially for the lay person. In her case the police were disgusted with the situation morally and arrested him for fraud but as she signed the documents (without a witness present) she was liable for the agreement.

I wish you well with this case and would be interested in any success.
Kate

Captain_Mainwaring_2

Can't win - if they had said "Sorry, he looks a bit funny, he can't have the loan" then some do gooder would have been screaming blue murder about discrimination.

Sounds like PC is being hung from it's own flagpole.

regularsaver1

yep, i got accused og ageism one when I was asking a 75 year old whether the best way was borrowing on a loan when they had £20k in savings - was only giving them the option

All this PC

Kate who was arrested - you say HIM but unsure who you mean from the rest of your thread

I am sorry but a police officer should know a case should not be discussed here and to contact the liasion unit