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Hi all,
Still new to this and just want to get some advice. To cut a long story short my wife took out a loan of £2000 with Welcome Finance in 2005 and made several payments when she was then made redundant and did not have the income coming it. She contacted Welcome Finance and explained and we thought everything was going well.
Next thing she knows a cheque is sent back to us and they tell us that they have passed the account to The Lewis Group for collections and they would contact us.......The nothing. We ring welcome they state the account is with someone else. We ring Lewis Group and they state they do not have it yet and will get back to us........Time goes on.
We moved house after this and contacted Welcome and told them new details and also sent a letter by recorded mail to them......More time goes on.
Wife forgets all about it and yet more time goes on. In 2008 I was working away out of the country when 2 big bruisers turn up on the door and demand that the wife signs these papers, which she did, and then the leave. She starts reading them and its from the Sherriff Court stating that my wife owed The Lewis Group over £6000. I was not there and not contactable so my wife started to pay them at a rate of £200 a month ( I was away several months ). When I got back she explained everything and I took it as Gospel.
Fast forward to 3 months ago and I started to read all these Forums and get a hold of some great information. I contacted The Lewis Group by letter asking them for a statement of account and current balance of affairs as I could not understand why this debt had grown so much in such a short time. I got a compliments slip saying that there were errors on the account and she now only owed £600. I blew my lid. This was not a letter explaining anything......It was 5 words written on a compliments slip with no name or signature. The Lewis Group got the following reply from me writing on behalf of my wife:
Thank you for your reply which I received on the 16th of September 2010.
May I start in saying that I found this letter of explanation unacceptable to be merely written on a compliments slip with no name or explanation of what has happened regarding my account stating that I no longer had an outstanding balance of over £3000 but a balance of only £787.67. I have gone through the statement that you have provided to me and am concerned by some of it’s content and accuracy. I have made a list of points which I would like you to explain in detail:
1. The letter with reference xxxx/xxxxxx (which is undated) clearly states that there is a decree for payment from xxxxxxxx Sheriff Court attached stating the outstanding balance to be £6483.93. The Decree itself states that the sum of £6130.10 is owed by myself. I understand that the amount stated is due to Court Fee’s of £328.83 being added on but can you explain why you have also added on a Court Fee cost of £25. After contacting you regarding this it would now appear that this initial figures were incorrect by a sum of £2494.70 which was credited back to the account shown on the 12th of December 2007. This is a year before the decree was issued from the court, therefore, the information that you supplied to the court was false and was not a true record of the amount outstanding. At the time that you applied for the Decree for Repayment your own records from March 2008 state that sum outstanding was £3568.78 and no way near the £6130.10 which is the records you supplied to the Sheriff Court.
2. On the Personal Loan statement with Account Number xxxxxxx I contacted Welcome Finance who agreed at the time to accept payment by cheque of £40 monthly to reduce the debt as I was in financial hardship at the time and no longer in employment. You can clearly see that payments were regularly sent from September 2006. Can I ask why cheques for £40 were sent to Welcome Finance yet only cheques for £34.15 appear on this account. I continued to pay £40 every month until January 2007 (as stated in the records you have provided to me) but was contacted by Welcome Finance after the cheque sent in February was returned stating that this account had been passed to a collections department who would contact me to provide me with payment details as this was now a new account number. Welcome Finance also stated at the time I was paying by cheque that the interest on this account would be frozen for a short time to allow me to try to repay what I could at the time due to my financial situation. This clearly was not applied to the account and looking at the details you supplied Welcome Finance did not inform me that this would now be passed to a collections department even though the payments we had agreed were being sent and cashed.
3. In April 2008 I moved properties and sent out covering letters to company’s I had accounts with including Welcome Finance. I waited 4 weeks and since I had received no reply from Welcome Finance I contacted them by telephone to update my details held. At the time they informed me that my account was no longer with them but stated that my contact details had been changed and the company now dealing with my repayments would be informed and I would be contacted by them directly to discuss repayments. I see by the records that you have provided me that I have been charged for £10 fee for Telephone Call on the 4th July 2008, £10 fee for Telephone Call on the 18th of July 2008, £25 fee for Outside Call on the 18th September 2008, £10 fee for Telephone Call on the 19th September 2010, £10 fee for Letter on the 19th September 2010 and a £50 fee for Skip Trace on the 18th December 2010. I must inform you now that I do not accept that these charges are justified as no such calls or letters were received by me as you clearly only contacted my previous details that had been held on the system and the letter would have been sent to the previous address therefore was never received. On looking at my credit file from Equifax I have just received I can see that you traced me to my current address from there. As stated earlier I contacted Welcome Finance on more than one occasion stating my new contact details. I request that the total of £65 for Telephone Calls and Letter be removed from the outstanding balance for this account.
4. Can you please explain to my the details regarding the following Interest deductions on the following date. On the 12th of December 2007, as per the records you supplied me, you placed an Interest charge on the account of £441.48 which states it is for a Settlement Penalty Interest but also on the 12th of December 2007 you placed a charge of £2907.36 which merely states Interest. On the second document it states on the account a credit of £2494.70 Correction Adjustment not arrears in January 2008. Can you tell me where you get that figure from as the original Interest states £2907.36 that was placed on the account in error as the Settlement Interest was already placed on the account at a rate of £441.48.
I look forward to a full response to this letter within 14 days and if I do not receive a satisfactory response I intend to pursue my complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service and Financial Authorities. I have taken a full copy of this letter and intend to send it to Dumbarton Sherriff Court for further investigation surrounding the amounts given to them for the Decree.
Yours Faithfully,
Sorry for it being so long but though I should add the letter on here. I am still waiting for them to get back to me but they have stated as they have a decree of payment for over £6000 she still has to pay until all of this is sorted. I would have been quite happy to find out she owed £3000 less than what she thought but they whole way they have gone about this stinks.
Any suggestions?
Still new to this and just want to get some advice. To cut a long story short my wife took out a loan of £2000 with Welcome Finance in 2005 and made several payments when she was then made redundant and did not have the income coming it. She contacted Welcome Finance and explained and we thought everything was going well.
Next thing she knows a cheque is sent back to us and they tell us that they have passed the account to The Lewis Group for collections and they would contact us.......The nothing. We ring welcome they state the account is with someone else. We ring Lewis Group and they state they do not have it yet and will get back to us........Time goes on.
We moved house after this and contacted Welcome and told them new details and also sent a letter by recorded mail to them......More time goes on.
Wife forgets all about it and yet more time goes on. In 2008 I was working away out of the country when 2 big bruisers turn up on the door and demand that the wife signs these papers, which she did, and then the leave. She starts reading them and its from the Sherriff Court stating that my wife owed The Lewis Group over £6000. I was not there and not contactable so my wife started to pay them at a rate of £200 a month ( I was away several months ). When I got back she explained everything and I took it as Gospel.
Fast forward to 3 months ago and I started to read all these Forums and get a hold of some great information. I contacted The Lewis Group by letter asking them for a statement of account and current balance of affairs as I could not understand why this debt had grown so much in such a short time. I got a compliments slip saying that there were errors on the account and she now only owed £600. I blew my lid. This was not a letter explaining anything......It was 5 words written on a compliments slip with no name or signature. The Lewis Group got the following reply from me writing on behalf of my wife:
Thank you for your reply which I received on the 16th of September 2010.
May I start in saying that I found this letter of explanation unacceptable to be merely written on a compliments slip with no name or explanation of what has happened regarding my account stating that I no longer had an outstanding balance of over £3000 but a balance of only £787.67. I have gone through the statement that you have provided to me and am concerned by some of it’s content and accuracy. I have made a list of points which I would like you to explain in detail:
1. The letter with reference xxxx/xxxxxx (which is undated) clearly states that there is a decree for payment from xxxxxxxx Sheriff Court attached stating the outstanding balance to be £6483.93. The Decree itself states that the sum of £6130.10 is owed by myself. I understand that the amount stated is due to Court Fee’s of £328.83 being added on but can you explain why you have also added on a Court Fee cost of £25. After contacting you regarding this it would now appear that this initial figures were incorrect by a sum of £2494.70 which was credited back to the account shown on the 12th of December 2007. This is a year before the decree was issued from the court, therefore, the information that you supplied to the court was false and was not a true record of the amount outstanding. At the time that you applied for the Decree for Repayment your own records from March 2008 state that sum outstanding was £3568.78 and no way near the £6130.10 which is the records you supplied to the Sheriff Court.
2. On the Personal Loan statement with Account Number xxxxxxx I contacted Welcome Finance who agreed at the time to accept payment by cheque of £40 monthly to reduce the debt as I was in financial hardship at the time and no longer in employment. You can clearly see that payments were regularly sent from September 2006. Can I ask why cheques for £40 were sent to Welcome Finance yet only cheques for £34.15 appear on this account. I continued to pay £40 every month until January 2007 (as stated in the records you have provided to me) but was contacted by Welcome Finance after the cheque sent in February was returned stating that this account had been passed to a collections department who would contact me to provide me with payment details as this was now a new account number. Welcome Finance also stated at the time I was paying by cheque that the interest on this account would be frozen for a short time to allow me to try to repay what I could at the time due to my financial situation. This clearly was not applied to the account and looking at the details you supplied Welcome Finance did not inform me that this would now be passed to a collections department even though the payments we had agreed were being sent and cashed.
3. In April 2008 I moved properties and sent out covering letters to company’s I had accounts with including Welcome Finance. I waited 4 weeks and since I had received no reply from Welcome Finance I contacted them by telephone to update my details held. At the time they informed me that my account was no longer with them but stated that my contact details had been changed and the company now dealing with my repayments would be informed and I would be contacted by them directly to discuss repayments. I see by the records that you have provided me that I have been charged for £10 fee for Telephone Call on the 4th July 2008, £10 fee for Telephone Call on the 18th of July 2008, £25 fee for Outside Call on the 18th September 2008, £10 fee for Telephone Call on the 19th September 2010, £10 fee for Letter on the 19th September 2010 and a £50 fee for Skip Trace on the 18th December 2010. I must inform you now that I do not accept that these charges are justified as no such calls or letters were received by me as you clearly only contacted my previous details that had been held on the system and the letter would have been sent to the previous address therefore was never received. On looking at my credit file from Equifax I have just received I can see that you traced me to my current address from there. As stated earlier I contacted Welcome Finance on more than one occasion stating my new contact details. I request that the total of £65 for Telephone Calls and Letter be removed from the outstanding balance for this account.
4. Can you please explain to my the details regarding the following Interest deductions on the following date. On the 12th of December 2007, as per the records you supplied me, you placed an Interest charge on the account of £441.48 which states it is for a Settlement Penalty Interest but also on the 12th of December 2007 you placed a charge of £2907.36 which merely states Interest. On the second document it states on the account a credit of £2494.70 Correction Adjustment not arrears in January 2008. Can you tell me where you get that figure from as the original Interest states £2907.36 that was placed on the account in error as the Settlement Interest was already placed on the account at a rate of £441.48.
I look forward to a full response to this letter within 14 days and if I do not receive a satisfactory response I intend to pursue my complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service and Financial Authorities. I have taken a full copy of this letter and intend to send it to Dumbarton Sherriff Court for further investigation surrounding the amounts given to them for the Decree.
Yours Faithfully,
Sorry for it being so long but though I should add the letter on here. I am still waiting for them to get back to me but they have stated as they have a decree of payment for over £6000 she still has to pay until all of this is sorted. I would have been quite happy to find out she owed £3000 less than what she thought but they whole way they have gone about this stinks.
Any suggestions?
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