blemain finance warning post - BEWARE

just a warning to all of you considering blemain finance as a loan company.

i made the huge mistake of using this company , reccommended to me by ocean finance. the company insist i take out a joint loan with my wife. i thought nothing of this -until i missed a payment. what blemain do is their small print states that they can ring or mail you upto 4 warnings per month at £35 . what they mean is 4 times per person even though its the same loan. This is a max of £280 charges per month, which when disputed, they state is reasonable as they have capped it to 4 per month. i has 2 letters and 2 calls on the same day.

i lost my job and asked them to defer the payments or part payments until i was back at work. they issued a summons to reposess my house in response.when i questioned it with them at monarch recoveries ( their in house debt collectors), they said they going to 'take my house'

the small print states that if you dont provide them with a copy of your house insurance by a deadline, they will charge you an inflated insurance to cover the house and charge it to your loan. i sent it but they claim they never received it . my house insurance is £230 per year. they charged me £634 and refuse to send a copy of the cover they state they are providing me with.

i asked them for a breakdown of charges so far on the account. they sent me a statement of repayments so far without the charges being listed. six requests so far and nothing forthcoming.

i have since got back on track and intend speaking to the fsa about them but blemain will not send me a list of charges , as i suspect they know it will be damning.

if you are with blemain already - send everything by recorded post as they will deny receiving it, and insist on a list of charges. good luck
if you are not with blemain yet -you have been warned.THIS IS NOT THE ONLY GRIPE ABOUT THEM ON THE INTERNET.

THIS POST IS FACTUAL AND IS IN NO WAY SLANDEROUS/LIBELOUS. I AM HAPPY TO PROVIDE EVIDENCE OF THE CONTENT.IT IS MEANT AS A WARNING TO OTHERS
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Comments

  • also, please post replies if you are having similar problems with them so we can form an action group withn one voice for the FSA
  • hellnearth
    hellnearth Posts: 208 Forumite
    edited 17 October 2009 at 10:47AM
    Yes, there's a lot about them and none of it good! I'm posting my story here along with yours as it seems to be the most recent.
    I took out a secured loan with Blemain in August 2006 through a broker called Loan of Choice Finance Ltd (...........stupid, I know :-( ). They advised Blemain because of my circumstances - I'm a UK citizen but was working abroad.
    I actually asked to take out PPI as my boss was a nutter and there is no such thing as job security where I was working.
    I then moved back to the UK in Aug 2007 and am self-employed, with a 10 hour a week paid part-time job.
    I originally came across these boards looking for advice on remortgaging in my situation to try and be shot of Blemain for their ridiculous interest rates and behaviour. Three years down the line - I borrowed 15,000 and it will still cost me over 17,000 to settle with them. Legalised robbery.
    Anyway, they do feature in several places in the forums and there are some very good people on here giving very good advice - thank you :T - and after lots of scouting around, I've gone back over the original paperwork I received from Blemain.

    What I realise now (......stupid, I know :-( ) is that they have never actually sent me a PPI or PPP insurance policy document. What they have sent me is a summary for a 3 year cover plan with Direct Group/Norwich Union, and in that summary it says that I would not be covered for unemployment if I was not in full-time employment in the UK 6 months prior to any claim. There is also another clause saying you don't qualify if you are self-employed unless you are ceasing trading because of lack of earnings. So it looks like I never have been eligible.

    Also, this summary clearly states that the cover and payments will last for only 36 months. However, on my agreement it states that I have a Payment Protection Loan of over 2,000 which is being paid off at 34.50 monthly over 120 months ( the duration of the loan. )

    i have been down the letters, phonecalls, charges road with them too. They even upped my monthly repayment at one point. I didn't question it (..........stupid, I know :-( ). I just assumed that it was to do with interest rates at the time. After much reading, it seems that they do what they want and it has very little to do with interest rates.

    I'm not trying to wriggle out of paying them what I owe them, but I certainly don't want to have been/be paying them for something which is totally redundant. So I have set the ball rolling ( from my side anyway ) and written asking for an explanation and the original policy documents.
    Being self-employed, on a low income etc. I am not very hopeful of being able to remortgage to get rid of this millstone round my neck, but even a reduction in payments would help.
    New CC starting balances for 2014: BC: £2780.00 (2717.45) MBNA: £2185.72 (2160.72)
    Repayment a/c: £112.50
    Weekly grocery spend:
  • nacholibre wrote: »
    just a warning to all of you considering blemain finance as a loan company.

    i made the huge mistake of using this company , reccommended to me by ocean finance. the company insist i take out a joint loan with my wife. i thought nothing of this -until i missed a payment. what blemain do is their small print states that they can ring or mail you upto 4 warnings per month at £35 . what they mean is 4 times per person even though its the same loan. This is a max of £280 charges per month, which when disputed, they state is reasonable as they have capped it to 4 per month. i has 2 letters and 2 calls on the same day.

    i lost my job and asked them to defer the payments or part payments until i was back at work. they issued a summons to reposess my house in response.when i questioned it with them at monarch recoveries ( their in house debt collectors), they said they going to 'take my house'

    the small print states that if you dont provide them with a copy of your house insurance by a deadline, they will charge you an inflated insurance to cover the house and charge it to your loan. i sent it but they claim they never received it . my house insurance is £230 per year. they charged me £634 and refuse to send a copy of the cover they state they are providing me with.

    i asked them for a breakdown of charges so far on the account. they sent me a statement of repayments so far without the charges being listed. six requests so far and nothing forthcoming.

    i have since got back on track and intend speaking to the fsa about them but blemain will not send me a list of charges , as i suspect they know it will be damning.

    if you are with blemain already - send everything by recorded post as they will deny receiving it, and insist on a list of charges. good luck
    if you are not with blemain yet -you have been warned.THIS IS NOT THE ONLY GRIPE ABOUT THEM ON THE INTERNET.

    THIS POST IS FACTUAL AND IS IN NO WAY SLANDEROUS/LIBELOUS. I AM HAPPY TO PROVIDE EVIDENCE OF THE CONTENT.IT IS MEANT AS A WARNING TO OTHERS

    Hi there. I too have had problems with this company. I didn't realise I had taken PPI out with them on 2 loans. I even thought I had been approached by Ocean Finance originally re a top up loan. Turned out it was a company called Phone-a-loan who are really guess who? Yup Blemain.

    When I cancelled PPI with them - 1 year after I had paid my loan up they offered me a stupidly low amount saying that it was my fault because even though the loan was paid up in full I still needed to cancel the insurance for any refund. I didnt find this information out until I approached them about the mis selling of the ppi and in a standard letter they mentioned cancelling the policy.

    This system is all wrong with all companies. I too had lots of charges added to my account through late payments etc and when I paid the loans up early the outstanding amounts were crippling. More than i had orriginally borrowed by huge amounts.

    I will never, ever, take these kind of loans out again. I have learned a very harsh lesson.
  • Well, got a phone call from a lady at Blemain today in reply to my letter. She was very polite and helpful.......at the moment ( or is that me being really cynical? )
    She's been assigned to investigate my case. She sounded a bit bemused too re: the 36 month policy summary and, I got the impression that I shouldn't have been offered a loan at all as I was an ex-pat at the time.
    So we will see what happens.
    New CC starting balances for 2014: BC: £2780.00 (2717.45) MBNA: £2185.72 (2160.72)
    Repayment a/c: £112.50
    Weekly grocery spend:
  • I have been having problems with Blemain foir over 8 months, i found a forged signature on a document saying i had a second income, they didn't give me the APR promised, and didn't tell me the charges till after the loan was inplace!! I have complained to the on numourese ocations, and they wrote back saying the had a complain procedure, and if i wasn't happy to ccontact the FOS, after 6 months and no responce i contacted the FOS, only to find out i was unregulated and they couldn't help!!! so again miss lead by them!

    I don't know what to do next, they egnore my complaints, surley they cannot get away with this typr of behavour, and help would be apriciated

    Thanks
  • midge61
    midge61 Posts: 201
    First Post First Anniversary Combo Breaker
    Forumite
    Hi
    When I had problems with them taking money out of my bank account and not applying it to the loan account I complained to : http://www.fisa.co.uk/ They were very helpful and wrote to Blemain on my behalf.

    Too me 6 months of arguing with blemain but got my money back in the end. Also beware that when the charges are added to your account if you don't pay them within 28days they then start adding interest at your contractual rate......in my case at 15.90%. !

    Unfortunately there doesn't seem anywhere to get any real help with this company but the FSA are supposed to be looking into the second charge market so maybe there is some flicker of light at the end of the tunnel............we can live in hope.
  • whipped
    whipped Posts: 49 Forumite
    Credit Cartel Review have won a victory recently in the news as they took on Blemain Finance. I have also contacted them.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8365018.stm

    There is hope, it's just finding the right people or person to do it. I believe Blemain Finance have a lot of flawed agreements, and it is time there were pulled up just like Swift as they do operate in a similar way. So don't despair people.

    Read this story and see for yourselves, and do your own research.

    http://www.credittoday.co.uk/news/news-item.cfm?news=1391#content
  • Perhaps they are now trying to improve their image? They have agreed that I was missold PPI and have agreed to deduct the total, plus interest already charged from my O/S balance and reduce my monthly payment accordingly. The woman I dealt with was very polite and helpful.
    Having said that, they were supposed to sort that out this month but haven't, but they did phone to apologise!
    New CC starting balances for 2014: BC: £2780.00 (2717.45) MBNA: £2185.72 (2160.72)
    Repayment a/c: £112.50
    Weekly grocery spend:
  • ascint
    ascint Posts: 16 Forumite
    nacholibre wrote: »
    also, please post replies if you are having similar problems with them so we can form an action group withn one voice for the FSA


    As someone who is still suffering at their hands has the action group idea taken off.

    Having cleared my arrears 6 months ago, I now find they have gone back on a promise to change my payment date to the month end and are charging me £35 per month for not paying on the 18th. Even when I do pay on the 18th on their web payment site they claim £35 because the money has not gone through their system.
  • Apples2
    Apples2 Posts: 6,442 Forumite
    ascint wrote: »
    As someone who is still suffering at their hands has the action group idea taken off.

    Having cleared my arrears 6 months ago, I now find they have gone back on a promise to change my payment date to the month end and are charging me £35 per month for not paying on the 18th. Even when I do pay on the 18th on their web payment site they claim £35 because the money has not gone through their system.

    Pay on the 12th. The money is going out anyway so it isn't yours to spend.

    Leaving it until the day it is due is simply madness (as you are discovering each Month).
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