Irresponsible lending

[Guiseppy]

Do I have grounds for a refund?

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How do I paste here?

[Guiseppy]

Re: Irresponsible lending

[IMG]file:///page1image4920[/IMG] Thank you for your communication received on 12 August 2016, regarding your complaint againstPayday Express.
Your Complaint:
You have raised concerns regarding the loans you received and have alleged the following:

•  Your borrowing increased over time and the amounts tended to increase,
  
•  The loans you received trapped you into a spiral of debt,
  
•  You had to take out more loans with Payday Express and other lenders to repay your existing
  loans,
  
•  It should have been identified from your financial circumstances that borrowing that your debt
  problems were getting worse,
  
•  Your credit report and wages showed you were in financial difficulties.
  My Assessment:
  As a new Payday Express customer you completed an application for credit on 11 November 2010.You confirmed your personal details, including your net monthly income. An external credit and identitycheck was carried out via the Credit Reference Agency (CRA) Experian and you electronically signedyour new running loan agreement consenting to our terms and conditions and Privacy Policy. Given theinformation provided your application was accepted pending our internal and external final checks.
  Following our final checks being completed the loan sum of £400.00 was deposited to your chosenbank account on 11 November 2010. This left you with a repayment of £500.00 (£400.00 loan principal,£100.00 contractual interest). You chose to defer your loan repayments on seven occasions by payingonly the contractual interest, this left you with an amount of £500.00 due on 2 June 2011. In line withthe Continuous Payment Authority (CPA) you had consented to under the terms and conditions of yourrunning loan agreement your payment of £500.00 was received and the loan settled.
  Following this you received five further loan deposits ranging from £400.00 to £600.00 from 1 July 2011to your final loan deposit on 6 August 2012. During this period you chose to defer your loan repaymentson twelve occasions and received three top up deposits. This lending was provided to you at yourrequest and left you with an amount due of £612.00, unfortunately, your final repayment was notreceived and your account became overdue for payment. You contacted us on 12 September 2012 toadvise that due to unforeseen circumstances you were unable to repay your loan.
  Payday Express is a trading name of Instant Cash Loans Limited.
  Instant Cash Loans Limited is a company registered in England and Wales, Company Number 2685515Registered Address: 6 Bevis Marks, London EC3A 7BA
  Regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority in relation to credit-related activities.
  VAT Registration Number: 896 1022 16
  

*Please note that for training and security purposes, telephone calls may be recorded



[IMG]file:///page2image384[/IMG] PO BOX 255BicesterOxfordshireOX26 4ZYPh: 0800 652 4661E: info@paydayexpress.co.ukwww.paydayexpress.co.uk
On 3 November 2012 we received one payment of £104.16, your outstanding balance with PaydayExpress is £520.84 as of the date of this letter. An Income and Expenditure form has been enclosed foryou if you wish to complete and return this for an affordable repayment plan to be implemented.
No further loans have been provided to you form Payday Express.
On 12 August 2016 an email was received from you raising your concerns and the matter was escalatedto the Customer Relations Department to be investigated.
My Conclusion:
The checks completed and lending provided were in line with any guidance/regulations or legislationapplicable at the time to assess the affordability and suitability of the loans processed at your request.
It should be noted that Payday Express only lent to customers who met with our lending criteria. Werely on customers providing accurate information to us when processing a loan application which willenable Payday Express to make the appropriate lending decision and ensure all loans are affordablefor our customers. The Financial Ombudsman Service has previously confirmed that it is acceptablethat a business will act in good faith on information provided by an applicant.
A business makes an assessment of an individual’s creditworthiness based on multiple factors usingtheir own commercial judgement concerning lending decisions. This may include information relating totheir current situation and employment. The information provided by you at the time of the applicationsalong with the internal and external checks that were carried out, including credit checks via Experian,indicated the loans were suitable. The information available to us indicated that you could afford yourloan repayments
Given that you have provided information upon each application which has been confirmed as beingaccurate it is apparent that at no point prior to the loans being approved had you informed PaydayExpress that you were in financial difficulty. Your running loan agreements have stated to contact thebusiness if you believe you are in financial difficulty, and when contacted about this Payday Expresswould have acted responsibly in helping your repay any outstanding balance and limited your accessto any future loan deposits until such a time as this was suitable for you.
You allege that you had to obtain further credit in order to repay your loans with Payday Express. Itshould be noted that Payday Express does not have any control over a customer’s financial behaviour,spending habits or relationships with other lenders. Your financial behaviour, including your decision toapply for the loans is your own responsibility. You were under no obligation to apply for credit facilitieswith Payday Express.
I can conclude that I am unable to uphold your complaint on this occasion and appreciate this is not theresponse you were hoping for. Thank you for taking the time to provide your feedback to PaydayExpress.
I hope you are satisfied with our response, if not you may ask for the decision to be reviewed by us ormay also ask for an independent review by the Financial Ombudsman Service.
You have the right to refer your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service, free of charge– but you must do so within six months of the date of this letter.
If you do not refer your complaint in time, the Ombudsman will not have our permission to consider yourcomplaint and so will only be able to do so in very limited circumstances. For example, if theOmbudsman believes that the delay was as a result of exceptional circumstances.
Payday Express is a trading name of Instant Cash Loans Limited.
Instant Cash Loans Limited is a company registered in England and Wales, Company Number 2685515Registered Address: 6 Bevis Marks, London EC3A 7BA
Regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority in relation to credit-related activities.
VAT Registration Number: 896 1022 16


*Please note that for training and security purposes, telephone calls may be recorded



[IMG]file:///page3image416[/IMG] Please also see:


www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/consumer/complaints.htm.


A leaflet from the Financial Ombudsman Service, “Your Complaint and the Ombudsman” is availableby post only; please contact us if you would like a copy to be sent to you.
If we do not hear from you again within eight weeks of the date of this letter, we will consider yourcomplaint to be closed.
Should you wish to contact Payday Express with any further queries regarding this issue, please contactCustomer Relations using the details below.
Yours sincerely,
D.Carpenter
Customer Relations Department
T: 08002 802548
E: customer.relations@paydaycontact.co.uk


Payday Express is a trading name of Instant Cash Loans Limited.
Instant Cash Loans Limited is a company registered in England and Wales, Company Number 2685515Registered Address: 6 Bevis Marks, London EC3A 7BA
Regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority in relation to credit-related activities.
VAT Registration Number: 896 1022 16


*Please note that for training and security purposes, telephone calls may be recorded


PO BOX 255BicesterOxfordshireOX26 4ZYPh: 0800 652 4661E: info@paydayexpress.co.ukwww.paydayexpress.co.uk

[leclerc]

Re: Irresponsible lending

A refund of what exactly?

I'm not sure what the question is to be honest.

[Guiseppy]

Re: Irresponsible lending

Irresponsible lending redress.

[Snoopy1948]

Re: Irresponsible lending

Hi Guiseppy

It is almost impossible to answer your question without a full and comprehensive record of your borrowing alongside your income and expenditure at the time.

And I can quote a line from Payday Express's response ..... 'It should be noted that Payday Express does not have any control over a customer’s financial behaviour, spending habits or relationships with other lenders. Your financial behaviour, including your decision to apply for the loans is your own responsibility. You were under no obligation to apply for credit facilities with Payday Express'

Personally, I hate payday loans with a vengeance, and in my experience, people who resort to them already tend to be trapped in spiralling debt ( or just stepping on the ladder to ) and as such they become the large end of the debt wedge and at a point where people have to start questioning where they go next.

As such it gets to the point where the borrowing becomes irresponsible rather than the lending, although we all acknowledge that the payday loan industry still needs more control and legislation.

From the little that you have said, I think it will be hard to press a charge of irresponsible lending against these people as you should have been objective and in control of ability to repay ( as per your agreement with the contract of repayment ) although I fully understand that is so easy to say but so difficult to adhere to once debt takes a grip.

Perhaps your next step needs to be debt counselling to discuss the best way forward? I would suggest the Citizens Advice Bureau as a first step and they should be able to help you or refer you on as necessary.

https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/

[Unregistered]

Re: Irresponsible lending

I'm debt free, I paid this off in 2012. The roll overs are irresponsible lending.

[Snoopy1948]

Re: Irresponsible lending

I'm debt free, I paid this off in 2012. The roll overs are irresponsible lending.

Not sure if 'Unregistered Guest' and 'Guiseppy' are one and the same here?

If they are, and you are truly debt free, with four years having now lapsed, you appear to have been in a position to have paid it off. So why are you asking if there are grounds for a refund when you have clearly had the money, spent it and paid it back?

[Unregistered]

Re: Irresponsible lending

Yes it's me. Because they are saying I have an unpaid balance which is false. My details aren't even recognised when I try to log in to their website. This is because I no longer have an account with them. I'm claiming irresponsible lending refunds due to the amount of roll overs I had plus proper checks were not carried out.

[Anthony72]

Re: Irresponsible lending

If they are claiming that you still owe the money then you need to be asking them for a full itemised statement of account.


From reading their email it seems that the last debit the attempted failed and you contacted them to say that you could not pay
Is that the case?
If so when did you clear the balance and how did you do it?

How much are they claiming now?

The PDL industry was very different in 2012 and the regulations very lax , while I am aware of people on consumer action group who are claiming sucess in having debts written off I think these are more recent although Wonga in particular wrote off many debts some time ago

The number of roll overs is now strictly limited I believe

Have you checked which, if any trade organisation PDE belonged to in 2012? Might be worth trying to find their code of conduct for that time

PDE used to be part of the moneyshop I think but changed hands from what I can make out

[Anthony72]

Re: Irresponsible lending

Duplicate




This might be useful CFA Lending Code 2011 Payday Loans (1).pdf

[Guiseppy]

Re: Irresponsible lending

I paid it off through help from family members. How do I find the info you have suggested above?

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I've just read that. If a customer keeps extending their loan i.e. Roll overs it should become clear that they are in some sort of financial trouble and this should have been addressed. They didn't, they just kept offering me more money!!

[Anthony72]

Re: Irresponsible lending

I have provide the code of conduct for the CFA - they are currently members , this code is from 2011

Your next move would then be to ask for proof of debt, can you prove you paid it off?

[Guiseppy]

Re: Irresponsible lending

I can if I go back through years of bank statements. If I can't find it where do I stand? It's my word against theirs!! I'm positive I paid it off. They've closed my account and I've not heard anything since!!

[Snoopy1948]

Re: Irresponsible lending

Hi again Guiseppy

From the conversation so far, you are complaining about 'roll over' charges on a pay day loan, that I assume incurred additional interest and rollover charges, as being unfair to you as you couldn't maintain the repayment asked for and hence you incurred spiralling debt and you feel that you want those additional charges refunded as they were excessive although you were the author of that particular misfortune.

I am aware that the law was changed in April 2014 by the Financial Conduct Authority that limited rollovers to two and before that any controls were voluntary. Any complaint that you have can only be handled at the discretion of the lender ( and they have already responded to you ) but as you elected to roll the loan over on seven occasions, you must have been in a serious cash flow position. Under such conditions, taking out payday finance is never to be recommended and is probably an instant formula for more spiralling debt. Having said that, I have seen hundreds of people do the same just trying to keep their heads above water. I really feel that with the time that has passed and your argument being on the back of your own choices at the time, you would be best recommended to accept the company's lack of resolution unless you can produce statements showing every penny of interest and rollover charges made that may compound to seriously high and damaging penalties for someone already in debt and suggest that in light of the that and the distress caused as a result, both emotional and financial, you would like their consideration ( as an act of resolution ) to refund, or partially refund, some of those charges as an act of goodwill in this matter. Just my thoughts though ...