Me and my partner are absolutely fuming!!! I applied originaly for a £4000 loan with Alliance & L to be declined. Soon after I was phoned by some Guy from The Loan People who was very helpful and had an easy conversation, he said am I happy for him to run a credit check in which I replied "is this ok as I had already had one done that day with another company?" He assured me that this was all fine and further told me this had been successful and an underwriters named 'JST' had approved me, I wanted to confirm this with him to make sure this was right and I was going to be able to consolidate my debts within the next week, he replied "yes all is fine!" I would need to pay a £50 acceptance fee if I wanted to go ahead which I did. He stated the payment total over the 4yrs and the monthly repayment and he would send me through the documents to sign, the underwriter would phone day before to confirm bank details for the money to go into and offer any insurance available on the repayments. I have recieved a call today from TLP's customer service where the female informed me that I had been unsucssesful and would need to put my details forward to another panel of lenders. Obviously I was very confused and gutted to hear this, she was very unhelpful and did not empathise with my situation at all and stated I needed to sign a form so they can discuss my credit details in more detail over the phone to establish why I had been declined, in which I told her I had been assured I had been accepted. She told me that her collegue would not of said this as they don't run credit checks from there. She would not after asking on 2 occasions transfer me to the original collegue I spoke to. I again phoned this evening in a calm but assertive voice speaking to a male collegue who to my astonishment must have muted/unmuted the phone or something whilst I was explaining this to him to hear him say "this guy's going mental!!" (which I was far from doing) and then bluntly told me he's not qualified to deal and customer services will phone me back in the morning, in which I'm sure will be the same unhelpful lady I spoke to previously! This is very upsetting for me and my partner as we had celebrated being able to clear these debts so we could look for our first home! I'm also very concered at what this is doing for my credit rating.

Any help on what I can do would be appreciated.

Steve

Your £50 has gone. There will be no loan. If you send them any more money, it will go the same way.

Most of the people who take money for loan applications are scam artists. The best just apply to the same places that you applied to and they get the same result.

Having entered the murky world a few months ago of trying to get an adverse credit loan, I will also add that paying upfront fees is either a scam or just a waste of money that is ill afforded. Too many sharks out there willing to take advantage of people's dire financial predicament and profit from it. On top of that and the bad attitude or unhelpfulness from whoever you end up speaking with, first name only, you forfeit any control over how many credit checks are being done or knowing who by, any right to being informed, and any control over what is done with the information given. It is a lousy deal all round. Also beware the high rate premium call brokers that end up costing £22.50. Apparently they refund the amount after providing a copy of your phone bill, if not getting a loan, but I am dubious about that now.

Be aware that everyone you have contact with are just brokers or a marketing front, touting your circumstances for business, who do not care about the number of credit checks made and the negative impact on your credit rating. Even when you get the paperwork, it is just a trading name masking who the real lenders are. The paperwork is unlikely to be what was agreed over the phone, with exorbitant interest rates and terms and conditions that in effect say that they have the right to do anything and charge you anything, and you sign away any rights, only the obligation to pay whatever is demanded, whenever it is demanded. It shouldn't be legal but sadly it seems that it is.

A useful service through these forums or on the loans section of Moneysupermarket.com would be to provide a list of all the front names, the main business trading names, who they get the loans from, and the name behind them. Reveal how they make their money or charge, and give a rating based on comments given, with a forum section to comment on each. Can you, and will you do that Moneysupermarket.com? We could all pitch in with names and knowledge from our own experiences.