Financial Hardship Subtleties

[bugsy101]

Hardship - Assessment Guidelines - Legal Beagles

"loss of employment"

What about "lack of employment" - Unable to secure employment since June 08, so I'd say I've been suffering from financial hardship for quite a while.

Anyone shed any light on this?

Thanks! Love the forums btw!!

[natweststaffmember]

Re: Financial Hardship Subtleties

Hardship - Assessment Guidelines - Legal Beagles

"loss of employment"

What about "lack of employment" - Unable to secure employment since June 08, so I'd say I've been suffering from financial hardship for quite a while.

Anyone shed any light on this?

Thanks! Love the forums btw!!

There are multiple factors to do with Financial Hardship. The FSA Waiver on hardship states this:

"2.
In making an assessment of financial difficulty the firm will take into account:
a.
evidence of changes in lifestyle, including loss of employment; disability; serious illness; imprisonment; relationship breakdown; death of a partner; starting a lower paid job; parental/carer leave; and starting full-time education;
b.
evidence of the following events:
i.
items repeatedly being returned unpaid due to lack of available funds;
ii.
failing to make loan repayments or other commitments;
iii.
discontinuation of regular credits;
iv.
notification of some form of insolvency or court proceedings;
v.
regular requests for increased borrowing or repeated rescheduling of debts;
vi.
making frequent cash withdrawals on a credit card at a non-promotional rate of interest; and
vii.
repeatedly exceeding a credit card or overdraft limit without agreement (and, in this regard, where a complainant has incurred over £500 in unauthorised overdraft charges in the previous 12 months, that is to be treated as indicative of financial difficulty)."

As you can see a lack of employment is not necessarily Financial Hardship. It is the amalgamation of further factors as seen above.

[Amethyst]

Re: Financial Hardship Subtleties

The annoying thing with this whole system is if you try hard to keep your head above water, don't incur debts, and manage to get your rent/mortgage paid on time to the detriment of things like eating, heating and transport, you won't be classed as in hardship, because those things just aren't visible.

It is worth completing an income /expenditure sheet and getting together any details of further debts.

[bugsy101]

Re: Financial Hardship Subtleties

Hmm, well none of those really apply to me..

I don't have a CC because my NatWest student CC they gave me before uni went into arrears and was defaulted. So that's gone, along with credit rating lol.

Never took a loan.

I am on JSA (unfortunately).

Do any of those count?

I have no other income. But it may not be worth the hassle of filling in more forms to late be rejected anyway...

[WendyB]

Re: Financial Hardship Subtleties

Hmm, well none of those really apply to me..

I don't have a CC because my NatWest student CC they gave me before uni went into arrears and was defaulted. So that's gone, along with credit rating lol. .

Presume as it was defaulted you got lots of charges on it? If so, have you claimed them back? credit cards are not affected by the OFT case and waiver, and I found natwest dead easy to get the charges back from on credit card. I've got a thread on it somewhere, TonyB v Natwest, in the credit cards section, hang on will go and find it......


Here it is.......
TonyB - v - Natwest Credit Card ***SETTLED*** - Legal Beagles

[bugsy101]

Re: Financial Hardship Subtleties

Wendy you're awesome at this!!

I understand that you were re-claiming your hubby's CC charges whilst he was still in his repayment plan.. You think I could work this given my card has already been defaulted??

If so, please post the link to the require SAR I should send them..

Thank you so bloody much!! Need all the money I can get right now lol!!

You're a star Wendy, thanks .

Luca

[natweststaffmember]

Re: Financial Hardship Subtleties

mon plaisir.
Firstly you need your data so SAR
Legal Beagles

[bugsy101]

Re: Financial Hardship Subtleties

Ah there you are, thank you.

Now, this may sound silly, bt that SAR is geared at retrieving data about your bank account from the bank..

What bits do I need to change, considering this is a CC reclaim? For example, do I replace the account number bit with... My CC number?

[natweststaffmember]

Re: Financial Hardship Subtleties

Absolutely. Replace bank account with Credit Card number. WIll have a quick look through the templates this week and see how they are worded in case any changes might be warranted.

[Tools]

Ah there you are, thank you.

Now, this may sound silly, bt that SAR is geared at retrieving data about your bank account from the bank..

What bits do I need to change, considering this is a CC reclaim? For example, do I replace the account number bit with... My CC number?

Read post#1 of my thread and adapt the SAR from there Tools v MBNA ** SETTLED**

[WendyB]

Re: Financial Hardship Subtleties

Wendy you're awesome at this!!

I understand that you were re-claiming your hubby's CC charges whilst he was still in his repayment plan.. You think I could work this given my card has already been defaulted??


Luca

Well, it was only a repayment plan in as much as we had agreed to pay them xxx per month, it wasn't a DMP or anything like that.

Of course you can claim if you've already been defaulted. I think you'll find that most people's CC claims have been after defaults. Have a look at my Crapital One threads as well. I was defaulted for 2.5k, still got all my charges and interst back, to the tiune of nearly 1k, plus hubby's crap One card as well.
If the default arose because of charges, you may be able to get that removed too, although that's a bit more tricky and takes longer. If you want to have a go at getting the default removed, you would have to put that in your original Prelim.

Wendy x

[bugsy101]

Re: Financial Hardship Subtleties

Thanks guys,

About to send my SAR, but realised, don't know where to send it exactly..

It's a Student MasterCard from Natwest..

Thanks again for the help!

[enaid]

Re: Financial Hardship Subtleties

Thanks guys,

About to send my SAR, but realised, don't know where to send it exactly..

It's a Student MasterCard from Natwest..

Thanks again for the help!

Ok bugsy,
On the link that was given you about the SAR, this one Legal Beagles if you go to the bottom it gives all the contact addresses for the SAR's, your's would be the Natwest address.
Enaid x

[WendyB]

Re: Financial Hardship Subtleties

I sent mine to natwest card services, in Southend somewhere I think it was.

[natweststaffmember]

Re: Financial Hardship Subtleties

the credit card address for mail to pay the bill is as follows:
NatWest
Cards Customer Services
PO Box 5747
Southend on sea
SS1 9AJ
That was on the back of my NatWest CC statement