Hi All,

Just to let you know that after a year of patience, my complaint with the Financial Ombudsman has finally been decided and I am pleased to say that I won on the principle that PPI was missold. The adjudicator at the Financial Ombudsman called me this afternoon to tell me that Welcome Finance have offered a settlement figure that I should recieve by the end of the week. In line with the Financial Ombudsman policies, I am being offered the following:

1) the loan being recalculated as if the PPI was never added (which resets it to £3814.97 including interest & fees)

2) the difference I have paid in PPI plus 8% (£1943.17) being taken off the outstanding balance of the loan (which is nothing)

3) the remainder being refunded back to me (which is the full amount of £1943.17)

This has been a very gruelling and long winded process but it has been worth it from the result. I strongly urge any of you in the same position to stick it out, especially if you know you are right!

Kind regards,

Kirst

Morning All,

Just another update. I was contacted by the adjudicator at the Financial Ombudsman about fortnight ago saying that he was now investigating the case. Hopefully I am now at the final stages of this very long winded process.

Since the last post I have paid a further £935.70 off the settlement figure they gave me which should leave me with £300.53 left to pay, according to them. This is not the case as I recieved a statement from them last month detailing that my balance was still at £1200!! I sent this straight to the Financial Ombudsman to deal with.

After contacting the Citizens Advice Burea and gaining advice from them, I have now stopped payments to them from this month onwards as I believe I have more than paid back what I owe. I checked my credit report yesterday and noticed that they have been registering that I have been missing my payments since May of this year!! I have wrote a letter to them including my bank statements saying that if they do not rectify this asap then I will raise another complaint to the Financial Ombudsman and report them to the Information Commissioners Office - the pure cheek!!

PLEASE DO NOT USE THESE PEOPLE - THEY WILL MAKE YOUR LIFE A LIVING HELL AND THE DEBT SEEMS ENDLESS!

Morning Guys,

Another update: the FSO have now got all of the details from my side and as at 26th February 2009, they were progressing with getting information from Welcome Finance. To date, I have heard nothing more but I was informed that they are currently recieving a high volume of complaints and it could be two months before I hear anything ... fingers crossed for 26th April 2009!

I have worked out that since my first post on this, I have paid a further £935.70 off the settlement figure they quoted me. Leaving me £1236.23 to pay, according to them.

Regards,

Kirst

Morning Guys,

Another update: the Financial Ombudsman have not got all the details from my side and are now talking with Welcome Finance to get their side of the story. This was on 26th February 2009 but I have been told that they are currently dealing with a large amount of complaints (probably due to the economical climate!) so it could take two months before I hear anything.

I have come to the conclusion that by the time a resolution is made, the debt will more than likely be cleared. Since my last update, I have paid another £311.90. Therefore since my first post on this case on 6th October 2008, I have paid a further £935.70 in total leaving me £1236.23 left to pay off the amount outstanding (the amount they believe I owe!)

Regards,

Kirst

Morning All,

Just an update from my last post. Since then I have sent a case to the Financial Ombudsman who have sent me a complaint form to fill in. I intend to get this done asap.

I know I haven't come very far in 4 months but I was expecting this to be a slow process.

Therefore since letting you know the situation, I have paid a further £623.80 of the loan.

tracey26:thanks.i will let you know how i get on!it will be a lil while.i have to give welcome 8 weeks to respond to my letter with a satissfactory responce then on to the financial onbesman.ive been to solicitors and allsorts and got lots of advise.i told them on phone if they cant tell me what all the charges are ie,10s 20s 25s all over the place on every month they cant enforce them and there for have to remove them!now he is tryin to find out what there for cus he knows with the evidence i have an the fact that we never defaulted he could end up in whole world of poo!never mind that i have proof i paid cash in hand twise and it wasent put on the account.the guy told me the card payment didnt go through so i had to pay cash.but it did go through and he STOLE my money.i will do everything in my power to get full conpensation as ive already paid too much!

maybe head of welcome should take a long hard look at this site and see how many of there costomers are being conned and treated badly by there staff!

thanks.i will let you know how i get on!it will be a lil while.i have to give welcome 8 weeks to respond to my letter with a satissfactory responce then on to the financial onbesman.ive been to solicitors and allsorts and got lots of advise.i told them on phone if they cant tell me what all the charges are ie,10s 20s 25s all over the place on every month they cant enforce them and there for have to remove them!now he is tryin to find out what there for cus he knows with the evidence i have an the fact that we never defaulted he could end up in whole world of poo!never mind that i have proof i paid cash in hand twise and it wasent put on the account.the guy told me the card payment didnt go through so i had to pay cash.but it did go through and he STOLE my money.i will do everything in my power to get full conpensation as ive already paid too much!

Hi just a quick message, you note that you are sending this to the FOS.

They WILL NOT look at a complaint until they feel the company has eqhausted all routes. before you apply to them start the official complaints procedure with Welcome, send it recorded delivery. They MUST reply within in 5 working days, if nothing contact them and advise that they are in breach of the FSA's code of condute relating to complaints and ask for their senior complaints procedure. They MUST have a final written response to you with 8 weeks, after that if you feel that the outcome is unfair then you can go to the FOS.

Hope this helps.

I'm sorry to hear that the same is happening to you what has happened to me. Nearly everything you have said has matched what has happened to me.

I have now put together a letter with all of the paperwork I have recieved from them including the original credit agreement (as appendices to make my point). I have sent a copy of this to the Financial Ombudsman also.

I'll let you know how I get on and keep me informed with your case.

anyone that takes out a loan with these rip off merchants is very unfotunate!i had my first ever statement today since i took out loan dec 2006 after requesting one for a full year!i have never felt so angry or royaly screwed over in my life.i borrowed £2500 and had to pay back £3178.yeah right.me and my hubby have paid £4200 so far and they still say we owe them £2500.they know where they can shove that please check your statements thouroghly!i have descoverd they stick charges on randomly when you havent defolted.one month tthe charges tottalled £375!and they cant tell me what for.and if they cannot tell you what the charges are for they CANNOT inforce them.im not paying them another penny and am taking my complaints all the way to the financial obendsmen.oh if you pay by cash get a receipt or they will pocket it and not add it ti your accout they did it to us!

the interest is calculated at the start to tell you what u will be paying but it is added on monthly so you do not pay it twice.. it just lets you know on the credit agreement what you will pay total in interest if you were to pay £155/month..

id advise overpay so that the interest added on will be significally reduced due to you paying extra on the capital..

the reason your balance was £2k when you got rid of your ppp as you got a part rebate which made your balance higher than if you didnt take ppp at all.. what you could do is short settle when your balance is small.. offer £750 when you have £1k left.. they will settle it off for you.. that way you save aswell..

I don't think you understand what I am saying.

The interest is calculated at the start of my loan therefore I knew what I was paying on the interest - no problem. However, if the interest has been calculated at the start of the loan and added to the total to equal £155.95 a month over three years, why are they added interest on each month? I'm not the only person who finds this extremely bizarre. On my credit agreement, there is now 'total amount to pay' so I never knew from the get go exactly how much they expected of me and being extremely desperate, the ins and outs were not my top priority - getting my rent and council tax paid were.

I never said I was not paying. I have always paid monthly with a direct debit and have not cancelled this so no charges will be added onto my account. None that I know of anyway.

Regarding the new credit agreement, I know my branch will not know anything about hence phoning Head Office ... who then put me through to the branch ... who then put me back through to Head Office! It's clear to see that no-one there knows what they are doing. All I want to know is why they still expect me to pay over £2000 when my original loan was only for £2000 two years ago over three years considering a revised credit agreement indicates that I should nearly have paid this off.

no not at all.. its still part capital part interest..

and kirsty. .the people you are dealing with must be new people who have not worked there for long.. I do not work for welcome finance, I work for a bank however even we get complaints of these, dont get me wrong welcome finance may have ridiculous interest rates etc HOWEVER they do not advertise that much, their branches are always well out of the way so people come to them.. and their credit agreements are very clear cut for that reason..

I know with welcome finance they people who 'sell' ppp do not make any money even though the company do however what you should do is pay the £155 for 36 months then dispute your remaining balance because at the moment as we speak, for every month you do not pay you will be paying default interest and they will then use that excuse for that balance being so high.. so keep paying, at the end of your 36 months then dispute it

oh and the new credit agreemement you got the branch will not know about it as all PPP cancellations are done through head office so the local offices will not have a copy of your new credit agreement

i thought loans from welcome are now interest only

Thanks again everyone for your comment.

b-singh: you come across as though you work for them or have done in the past as many people have had very similiar problems so when you say that it annoys you when people complain about Welcome Finance, people only complain when they have experienced very poor customer service and their reputation is only due to the amount of customers who have had such service.

I am not trying to get out of paying anything and my calculations are correct. I was given a full rebate and have a new revised credit agreement to prove it - which they are denying all knowledge of. I had another conversation with them on Monday and again, they tell me the amount I am paying is correct yet when I proceed to go through my calculations and talk about the recent credit agreement I recieved, they suddenly can't speak!

I have wrote a letter to them now including all credit agreements I have recieved from them. I am sending a copy to the FSO also and retaining a copy for myself also.

If I didn't think I had a 'leg to stand on', I would not be causing such a fuss.