Hi There are several ways of finding your account details and any branch of Beneficial Finance can do it. They can search for your account details by using your surname and date of birth. Each customer has a unique CIF number (Customer Information Form) which stays with you long after your last account with them was closed. To say they can't find it is very curious. It may be harder if you have an unusual surname or if it is easy to make a spelling mistake. Failing that, you could always obtain one of the cheques that you paid to them. On the back, they will have either written or typed your account number with them. This is so they know which account to reverse the cheque off if the cheque bounced. Hope this helps.

I'm here Ok, the "1st Disburse" is the total sum payable. Your loan must have been over 7 years as £12,900.72 divides by £153.58 equally 84 times. The two "Rebate Paid CR" are the Life and Accident Sickness & Unemployment cover (ASU). The lower figure is the life premium. So they added on a whopping £1,599.69 in single premiums to protect their investment (a cynical view I know, but wholly accurate!). What I'm not able to work out from your figures is exactly how much interest they charged for the combined PPI premiums. I can give a very close approximation by using the following calculation: Total Sum Payable: £12,900.72 less capital: £6,000 less PPI Premiums: £1,599.69 = £5,301.03 Total Interest: £5,301.03 divide by £7,599.69 multiply by 1,599.69 = £1,115.84 So, on this basis, each monthly pay of £153.58 had £32.33 paying for your PPI and the interest on that PPI. (that's calculated by taking the PPI of £1,599.69 + interest of £1,115.84 divided by 84 mths). Have they re-written your loan onto another account (can you see the words "PAYOFF" anywhere?) or have they just re-structured your existing account to reduce the payments and extend the term? If they've done the former and given you a new account with PPI, then that is criminal since you have already proven that it is no use to you. If it's the latter, then I think the PPI cover has actually lapsed, but you still pay back the full premium plus interest over the whole term. In both cases, you should still insist that they failed to correctly assess your needs and did not establish that the policy was suitable. Did they even tell you it was optional? (probably not as the branch staff are paid extra bonus for each customer they sell a policy to). Every firm regulated by the FSA has to pay due regard to their customer's interests and treat them fairly (princple 6 of the FSA's Principles for Businesses). I would argue that HFC Bank have clearly not treated you fairly by failing to assess your financial and insurance needs. I would also bet that they didn't send any sort of explanation of their technical jargon on the information they sent you? Another prime example of not treating the customer fairly.

Hi again CBS is their "Comprehensive Banking System". It's an AS/400 based system that holds all their accounting data, customer records etc. CIF is the Customer Information Form which is accessed from CBS. It is extremely poor customer service that they send you all this information with their technical jargon and expect you to understand it. Personally, I'd raise a complaint and take it eventually to the Ombudsman Service if they fail to resolve the issues to your satisfaction as they are clearly not treating you fairly. I am a big advocate of the FSA and the Financial Ombudsman Service - I don't know of any other regulated industry that affords as much protection to consumers as the financial services industry. Stating that something has been archived means they still have it and therefore it is a valid data item under the subject access request. Just because it has been archived does not mean it is exempt. It is up to them to retreive it from archives which you should insist they do. My suspicion is they either can't be bothered, don't know how to retrieve it or don't have it. Either situation is unacceptable for a "reputable" bank. If I remember correctly, their data retention policy was to hold information about clients for 6 years after the date of termination of the relationship. As for calculating the PPI, I am more than willing to do it for you. Have you got anyway of uploading copies of the information they sent you without revealing any personal information (this is a public forum afterall). If you have, make sure you hide your name, account number, address and any other personally identifiable information. What HFC said about the PPI not showing as it's "built into the loan" is a complete falsehood. Whenever I hear someone tell me a blatant lie, I ask them to put it in writing.... strangely, they never do!

There are some absolute crackers: High F***ing Charges is probably the most apt, but you may need to pick a less profane "F" word....!

This is how I understand it, so long as they are unable to produce the original legal agreement. Of course, they would only send you a certified copy. Without the legal agreement, they cannot enforce the agreement against you without a court order. I would have to defer the legal technicalities to someone else on these forums who knows more about the Consumer Credit Act and the court processes. My knowledge lies in my past experience of HFC Bank and the regulatory environment. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately!?) I didn't study hard enough at school to become a lawyer I imagine your flexi account was either a Personal Loan Plus, Beneficial Loan Manager or the Household Flexible Loan. All 3 accounts are pretty poor from the customer's perspective and great from the bank's. If you pay the minimum monthly payment, you pay the maximum monthly interest. If you can't get shot of the account through HFC's poor administration, I'd suggest shopping around for a low rate loan, or you'll have the flexi-loan for years longer. You may also want to consider raising an official complaint to them about their sales practices. At the end of the day, they are supposed to be a "responsible lender". If their actions caused or encouraged you to overstretch your budget, they are equally as responsible as you. Hope this helps.

You can request a detailed breakdown of your account history - they should provide this free of charge (at least, they used to). The only difference really is that as a loan account is not a transactional account, they are under no obligation to send you a regular statement, but they must be able to produce one upon request.

Yes. There is nothing to stop you challenging these charges. HFC will probably respond and try to say that your account doesn't qualify, quoting the recent OFT advice on credit card charges. Ignore that response as your case is about penalty charges/excessive fees which are disproportionate to the administration costs incurred by the bank. You may also want to consider a complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service. Just because the level of a charge is listed in the account terms and conditions doesn't mean it's fair. Refer them to Principle 6 of the FSA's Principles for Businesses: A firm must pay due regard to the interests of its customers and treat them fairly. In order to complain to the FOS, you will need to have exhausted the bank's internal complaints procedure first. This is done when the firm issues their "Final Response" on the matter. Then you can refer to the FOS to arbitrate. The FOS decision will not prejudice any legal action you may take and their services are free to you, but will cost the firm £360 regardless of whether the complaint is upheld or rejected. Hope this helps.

I used to work there too and I whole heartedly agree with Dirty_Dog. The branch staff are generally quite young with little or no financial experience themselves. They are sent of a 4 week intensive sales course (yes, that's a sales course, not a financial advice course, where they are taught how to overcome your objections and close in on the sale...) and then sent back to the branches to sell loans over the phone and invite customers into the branch to sell the loan, plus PPI and as many general insurance products as they can. Their turnover of staff is very high due to the pressures placed on them to achieve targets. What's even more worrying, is that most of their compliance department know very little of the FSA's Principles for Businesses or even the FSA Handbook. From the top down, it is a sales organisation through and through. The Regional Managers tear the Branch Managers to pieces for not achieving targets, who in turn tear the Customer Account Managers to pieces. There is virtually no personal development and little investment in staff. If you watched the Whitleblower programme about Barclays recently, you'll not be surprised to learn that that was almost identical to every Beneficial Finance branch. I actually feel sorry for HSBC - they acquired Household Int for access to the North American consumer market. I don't think they fully understood the implications of acquiring HFC Bank as part of the deal. HFC Bank wanted to have the HSBC name in the rebranded branch network and the call it "HSBC Finance". It ended up being called Beneficial Finance with the HSBC logo - HSBC's brand name is massive and they didn't want HFC Bank to damage it! There are some good people there, but their numbers are dropping fast as they (like me) leave to work for real financial services companies and not telemarketing companies that have little, or no regard for their customers. If you ever need a loan, go to a real bank. (p.s. Dirty_Dog - I think we've probably met! :eek: )

Consumer Credit Agreement - as regulated by the Consumer Credit Act. It's the document you sign to say you wish to take the loan and be bound by the terms of the agreement. Without it, a bank cannot prove that the agreement between you and the bank exists and cannot enforce the terms of the agreement (i.e. that you owe them money). Someone else will need to give links to other threads on instructions etc as I've not read them all.... yet.

Hi Flopper When giving out sensitive personal information, banks need to be certain who they are giving it to. There is no hard and fast rules on how they do that, but I think HFC are being extra cautious. I used to work there some time ago and when I left, they didn't have any facilities to even check if a passport was genuine, but ID theft etc is a different matter entirely. If I were you, I would send a copy of your passport "for their records" as this should help speed the process up. I believe they try to buy themselves some time by writing back to you to request your passport or some other form of ID. Crazy thing is, they don't need your ID everytime they send you your bank statements, settlement letters or a letter stating your account is in arrears and they are charging you for the pleasure....!

The branch network of HFC Bank is Beneficial Finance. They have branches in most major towns and cities in the UK. Anyone in the branch will be able to find your details. Be warned though, they will try and sell you a loan to consolidate all your debts....! Expect an APR in the high 20's too! If you don't want to speak to the branch, call their customer services line on 0121 214 4701. Hope this helps.

Yes, I knew Rachel when I used to work there. She's a very nice lady and one of only a few decent people who work there, so please remember she's only doing her job! I'd be interested to know what was in the response though - if they are saying this issue regarding fees relates to credit cards only, I believe they're wrong. If I remember rightly, the issues with fees included fees such as excess overdraft fees, late payment fees, bounced payment fees and even mortgage exit fees (ERC - early repayment charges).

Hi INS is Payment Protection Insurance. In my opinion, PPI is so riddled with exclusions it's really not cost effective to have it. The FSA have recently fined and censured a number of firms for not treating customers fairly when it comes to selling of PPI. The PPI on Homeowner Loans with HFC are also monthly premiums, rather than being huge single premiums added to the loan at the beginning. You could also ask for this back if you feel that you were mis-informed or told that it was not optional (which PPI absolutely IS optional). Good luck!

I'd still go for as much as you can. At this stage, if you use the FOS rather than taking to court, you may get a win without having to go that far. The FSA is moving to a more principles based form of regulation, and one of those key principles is Treating Customers Fairly. If they have made charges to your account, provided you with a jargon-filled explanation, then I would suggest that they have definitely not treated you fairly. I would ask for a refund of the late fees and the severance charge, unless they can fully explain how it was calculated and that it was done so within the full terms and conditions of your legal agreement. I would state though that the Financial Ombudsman Services is fully independent and would give you a fair outcome if HFC doesn't resolve your complaint beforehand.

Wow! What on earth were they doing charging the account off and removing it so many times?? The recoveries are money you've paid to them. I think if you were to ask them to explain what's happened on your account and why, somebody in Operations Accounting is going to have a headache! I would certianly put the onus on them to explain what they have done because even with my years of experience of working for them, the above is totally confusing. I presume they are all in date order? As I stated earlier, raise it as a complaint because there's no way I'd be happy to receive such confusing information. How can you be sure they have charged you the correct amounts with so many complex layers of transactions going on....

Well, it really comes down to whether they did anything wrong. You would have signed a legal agreement to pay X over Y number years etc. The late fees are certainly fair game, but if the other charges are within the terms of the contract, you may struggle if they insist on enforcing it. They can charge for early settlement within the terms of the contract but I would ask that they fully explain how that charge was calculated (i.e. what calculation was used). If you're not happy with their explanation or if you think it is unfair, then make an official complaint. If they don't resolve it to your satisfaction, then you can refer the case to the Financial Ombudsman Service. Whatever the FOS says is binding on the bank. It's a free service to you and will not prejudice any legal action you may want to take. Hope this helps.

Hi The transaction codes are as follows: 1st DISBURSE = the initial disbursement of your loan. ADDL DISBURSE = Additional disbursements. If the money all went to you, you would not see this. If there were amounts used to pay off other creditors, they would be listed here with an "ADDL DISBURSE" for each amount. INT CAPITALISE = Interest Capitalise. This is the interest charge for the month being added to your account balance. All HFC secured loans had interest accrued daily, charged to the account monthly. REG PMT-EFF DTE = Regular Payment Effective Date. This is payments from you being credited to your account. ADMN FEE ASSESS = A late payment charge for "administration costs". IRREGULAR PMT = This covers any other credits to your account made by you. It does not cover any refunds of interest or such like. PRIN DR ADJ = Principal Debt Adjustment (not too sure about the Debt bit). This is used to make any adjustments to your account balance. PUT ON NON-ACCR = Put on Non-Accrural. This means your account no longer forms part of their receiveables (receiveables are loans they've lent out which are paying them back with interest and form part of their income & loss. When you stop paying beyond a certain point, they cannot count it as an asset). CHARGE OFF = Bad Debt. The loan has been written off their books so to speak. You still owe the debt, but they do not count it as part of their receivables and may assign or sell the debt to another company. REMOVE FROM C/O = The have reclaimed the debt from their charged off accounts. This only happens if they have good reason to do it - i.e. you pay a certain amount. INT ADJ = Interest Adjustment. Sometimes, they refund or re-charge interest. In all honesty, HFC should have provided you with a full explanation of all the jargon as simply sending out a breakdown of the account with all the internal codes is simply unacceptable. If I can help in anyway, please let me know.

Hi Sorry for the delay - been a bit tied up (not literally!). I would write back to HFC and state that this was already provided in your letter of 12th February, but for the sake of clarity, you will provide it again. However, as they have received your last letter (with cheque enclosed), you will not be forwarding another cheque and the 40 days start from date of receipt - 14th February 2007. Then remind them politely that you will report the issue to the Information Commissioners Office if they fail to meet their obligations. You can find more info about the Information Commissioner here: ICO Information Commissioner's Office Also, as you are a dissatisfied customer I would also suggest that you ask them to treat this matter as an official complaint. There are rules that they have to adhere to when dealing with complaints: They have to acknowledge your complaint within 5 days. They aim to resolve it within 4 weeks. If they cannot do so, they must write to you to explain why. They then have a further 4 weeks to resolve your complaint or issue a final response (their final word on the matter). You can then refer your complaint to the Financial Ombudman Service. The FOS is free (to the consumer) and would not prejudice and legal you might want to take. The FOS website is here: Financial Ombudsman Service With regard to them losing information, that is incorrect. They have to hold all the information for your account as long as your account is open. Once it's closed and there is no longer any relationship between the client and the firm, they retain it for 6 years before destruction. When they changed their name, they simply changed their trading style or the branch network. The main company, HFC Bank Ltd still exists which itself is a division of HSBC.

Hi DJ (and everyone else) Surely this case would be worth going down the Financial Ombudsman route? If others like tamadus and e28bigalbexley agree, I can give some pointers. I worked for HFC for 10 years in the Personal Banking dept (branch network) and know their sales process, complaints procedures and the Financial Ombudsman Service very well. I have since moved to greener pastures where the grass is not so bitter I agree that the PPI mis-selling route is the best one to follow - it opens up other routes too in terms of treating customers fairly and ensuring their financial promotions are clear, fair and not misleading. I would also focus on the sales practices employed by HFC to encourage you to take out the new loan. You could easily argue that had the PPI not been mis-sold, your payments would have been lower and more manageable and therefore you would not have fallen into arrears and a default would never have been issued. In any case, a final decision by the FOS is binding only on the firm - you do not have to accept their decision (if it is not favourable) and it does not prejudice and legal action you may take. The service is also free to the consumer, but costs the firm £360 regardless of whether the complaint is upheld or rejected.

Hi Roboraver I used to work for HFC in their branch network for many years and I am also watching this thread with interest! The legal agreements signed when the accounts are opened are kept in fireproof cabinets. Often there is no filing system for the legal agreements and many are lost or mislaid. Older agreements, especially from 1987 will be very difficult to locate. HFC branches (now re-branded as Beneficial Finance) do not employ any admin or back room staff. A typical branch has a Branch Manager and 3 Customer Account Managers (salespeople). They neither have the time, nor the inclination to search for a legal agreement in a cabinet that contains thousands of pieces of paper. They are too busy trying to reach their sales targets. Unfortunately, finding your legal agreement will not pay them any bonus, however, not hitting a sales target will get them a hiding from the Regional Manager! In response to LeeS80, if they cannot provide the legally binding contract, they don't have a leg to stand on. They have also clearly stated in writing that they took action to prevent your account being registered as a bad debt. A default is a bad debt and will make it harder for you to obtain credit. Also, the letter you received on 16th December is their standard response to any complaint - it's called an Acknowledgment Letter. It's the first stage of their internal complaints process. They should issue you a final response within 8 weeks of receipt of your complaint, or issue a further letter explaining why they are unable to resolve your complaint and when they expect to resolve it. Once they issue a Final Response (their last word on the matter), it's time to complain to the Financial Ombudsman Service. You can of course take the matter up in the courts, with the Office of Fair Trading (who issue their Consumer Credit Licence) as well as the Information Commissioner. From what I know of HFC Bank, the branch staff know very little of how to handle complaints correctly. Your letter quoting the principles of the Data Protection Act and statute law will go beyond the knowledge of the average Branch Manager and most Regional Managers. They do have some very knowledgable people in their Compliance and Complaints departments (in Winkfield and Birmingham) but they don't have enough of them. Removal of the default is a simple process that even a Branch Manager has the authority to do - there is a Credit Reference Agency amendment form on their bulletin board which they complete and send. As for renewing your account, they can make amendments to your existing contract (with your acceptance) but they cannot create a new agreement without you having signed it. Sometimes, the Collections Centre would re-write an account and a new legal agreement would be sent from and returned to there before the new account is setup. If that's what happened, your legal agreement would be there and not in the branch. You may want to complete a full Subject Access Request to obtain all the information they hold about you. If they cannot produce and legal agreements, any loan accounts you have are unenforceable.

Hi Mikey The account you took is a classic Interest Free Option account. You borrow the money, make regular monthly repayments and if you settle the account before the option period (usually 6, 9 or 12 months) you pay no interest. HFC also have Deferred Interest Free Option (DIFO) accounts where you DON'T make any montly payments and settle the account before the option period to pay no interest. With both IFO and DIFO, if you go past the option period, they add all the interest from day one to the account and thereafter on a monthly basis. I think your best bet is using HFC's internal complaint process and if needed, the Financial Ombudsman Service. You could have an argument based on the advice given by the salesperson in store if they gave you misleading information about the account being a DIFO when it was in fact an IFO. Also, the store should have asked you to setup a Direct Debit. If they failed to do this, you could also blame their poor administration (as you thought the DD was setup, repayments were so small you wouldn't have noticed them leave your account etc etc). I personally would blame them for not setting up the Direct Debit as if they had, you would not be in this position. A default for £45 for missing 3 payments is ridiculous and is seems extremely unfair. They will have also charged you £15 for each late payment and £50 for the default. You should claim those back too. Hope this helps.

No problem - I'm happy to help! Pre-existing conditions are never covered in PPI policies. There are so many exclusions that it's not really worth having. So I would seriously consider making a complaint against them for mis-selling the policy as it's of no use to you what so ever, especially now. If you don't mind me asking, how much did you originally borrow? To give you some idea, the single premium PPI cost for Single Life, Accident, Sickness & Unemployment cover for a £10,000 loan over 5 years would be in the region of £2,500 to £3,000. Whilst they wouldn't refund this money direct to you, they would have to refund it to your loan account if they failed to prove the policy was correctly sold, thus reducing your indebtedness. When you get your Subject Access Request back, they should have included a copy of your application form along with some form of fact find detailing (justifying) why you needed the PPI policy. If they haven't got this or if it is incorrectly filled out (both of which are highly likely) then they cannot demonstrate to the FOS that the policy was suitable for you. HFC have done what they call a "partial payment restructure". It's jargon for re-writing your loan over an extended period (beyond your original maturity date) therefore reducing your monthly repayments. The interest rate may or may not have been reduced. In this case, you won't get a balloon payment at the end. It would be great if you could keep us posted with your progress. Hope this helps.

If this was a loan taken through the branch network, there is a high probability the original, signed agreement has been lost. HFC can only take the payments as described exactly in your agreement. If they vary the amounts outside the terms of the contract, they are then considered to be in breach of that contract. The most like reason for the difference in repayment is probably down to a change in the balance of any other accounts you held with them being consolidated. I used to work there and that was a common mistake. They would often "hold" the completion of loans over the weekends to make their figures look better on Mondays - but if a loan signed up on Saturday was to pay off an account with daily interest, the settlement balance would change meaning they would sometimes need to increase the amount borrowed to cover it. All highly irregular. I agree strongly with karnevil - you will be fine. When the case is found in your favour, I'd suggest you make an official complaint to HFC Bank using their internal complaints procedure for compensation. The worry and stress of this mess must be immense (not being sarcastic either). You should not have to suffer due to their incompetence. This is a classic example of how not to treat your customer fairly and I'm sorry to say, is typical of HFC Bank.

You should just be able to ask HFC to provide you with a letter or statement of account confirming the charges made to your accounts for free, but failing that, a Subject Access Request will give you that information along with any other details they hold about you. From what I understand, banks are allowed to charge a nominal fee for the costs they incur through administering accounts in arrears (i.e. letters, phone calls, etc). This nominal fee was approximately £12.00. I notice that Capital One have reduced their late payment fees to £12 recently too. The point is though, no bank has yet had the balls to take this all the way to court for fear of setting a precedent. I hope you do get your fees back as they make enough money on the interest they charge (HFC Bank charge in the region of about 20-30%). Don't forget that you can also use their internal complaints procedure - if they fail to satisfy your complaint, you can take your case to the Financial Ombudsman Service - the case fee for them is £360, regardless of whether they are right or wrong. The service is free to the consumer but you have to have exhausted the internal complaints procedure before the FOS will look at the complaint. Hope this helps.

Hi Angel I used to work for this company... The £10 you are paying is for a subject access request. Address your letter to the Data Protection Officer at HFC Bank Ltd either in Birmingham or Winkfield, Windsor. They then have 40 days in which to comply with your request. Household Bank was simply one of their trading names for the branch network which has recently been rebranded (again) to Beneficial Finance. Their parent company is HSBC. With regard to your loan agreement, it is a fixed term, fixed rate agreement meaning that all the interest is front loaded (added to the loan) at inception. When you fall into arrears, no additional interest is accrued, but they do add "administration" charges and late payment fees which are usually £15 each. When you restructured your loan agreement, the arrears are posted to the end of the account along with any fees. I saw a few complaints in my years there where this happened and customers were not told the whole amount of arrears would become payable with the final payment for loans where the payment was not dropped, so beware of this if your loan is due to finish soon. Question - you were off work due to illness - did you take Payment Protection Insurance (PPI) when you took the loan? If so and the insurance claim was declined, you may have a case for the PPI being mis-sold. They have to demonstrate how you had a need for the policy, that they fully documented and discussed what other means you had of making repayments should you fall ill and that the policy was suitable for you. If they cannot do this then you have a strong claim (in my opinion) for saying this was mis-sold and you should request the premiums be refunded (for a £10,000 loan over 5 years, the premiums for Single Life, Accident Sickness & Unemployment cover can be as much as £3,000 or more). PPI is (in my opinion) the biggest con going. It has the lowest payout of any insurance type and so many exclusions it just doesn't cover you when you need it most. As for the debt management company, if they charge you a fee, drop them like a stone. You can get free impartial debt advise from the Citizens Advice Bureau or the Consumer Credit Counselling Service (CCCS). Debt Management Companies are unregulated and charge a fee when the last thing you need is to be spending out for extra costs. If HFC fail to comply with the Subject Access Request, you can pursue your complaint with the Information Commissioner or with the Financial Ombudsman Service. Remember to try and resolve things direct with the bank first, then invoke the services of the IC or FOS. I hope you get everything sorted and back into the black soon!