Hi CAG, After too many years of letting this rumble on, I have finally resolved to sort out my account with Paragon. I took out a loan initially in 1993 for £5k, and a further £4k in 1996, which was made into one loan with a balance of £8500 in 1996. I had some trouble with repayments off and on between 1997 and 1999, and in 1999 entered into a Debt managemnt agreement (I can't recall the name of the company I used however), and maintained the agreed payments until 2003. On receiving a letter from Paragon in 2003, I was shocked to see that in spite of being 80% of the way through the repayment plan, the balance owed to Paragon was still £9k. In 2004 I had a home visit from them, and in that visit a repayment plan was arranged that would "cover the interest", and I have been maintaining those payments (£160pm) since. Not having the original documents, I submitted a SAR to Paragon, and this returned a copy of the 1996 loan agreement, and a full statement of my account since 1993. There was no mention of the home visit, or a copy of the form I remember signing then, nor was there any mention of the agreement with the debt management company; in their response to the SAR, Paragon state that anything that is held on "paper file or microfiche that is not a relevant filing system for the purposes of the (Data protection) Act" will not be included. The statement showed a current balance of £10800, so I need to know where to go from here. By my calculations the sum owed on a loan of 8500 at their APR (23%) over 5 years (the original terms) is about £14500; according to the statement I have paid them around £31k, with a balance of £10800. I appreciate I had a couple of problematic periods, and I am not trying to wriggle out of paying my dues, but the sums paid so far and the amount claimed to be outstanding are outrageous. While I have no written record of the home visit agreement, I distinctly remember the agent saying the payment of £160 would cover the interest and a small bit of the captial. However, the first interest charge form 2004 immediately following the visit was £190, so this agreement was, in their full knowledge, never going to do anything but accumulate the debt, which it did, leading to a balance of £14700 in 2010, when Paragon froze the interest on their own initiative, and in the 2 years since the balance has of course fallen to its current level - but only from the position that their lack of transparency allowed it to reach in the first place. There has also been PPI payed on the loan, all the way from 1993 to 2003. So: What do (can) I do about the balance outstanding? Is there any recompense for the amount I have overpaid to them? Is their withholding of information in response to the SAR justified? Do I have a chance of reclaiming the PPI? Many thanks! D

I have credit card debts with Halifax/BOS. It seems they have sold these on to Cabot Financial. I have had an agreement with Halifax for long time that interest would be frozen and they accepted nominal monthly payment in line with CCCS recommendation (up to date). I have just received letter from Cabot Financial thanking me for the recent payment BUT, they go on to say "we'll continue to charge interest on your account until we've agreed a repayment plan with you". Can they ignore the agreement with Halifax/BOS and start charging me interest??? I would have thought that when they bought the debt they took over the agreement rewgarding frozen interest and payment that I had in place? Before I write back I'd appreciate any advice on this.

Hi Guys, had a loan off Paragon finance in 1998 for £5000, paid it regularly untill my heart condition developed and put me in hospital for several months, had to pack up my well paid managers job and take a lower income job. Negotiated via debt advisors to pay a reduced amount, I was told over the phone that interest had been frozen. This lower payment continued untill 2009 when Paragon wrote to me for the first time to say interest had been added since the inception of the loan and I now owed them £22,345 instead of what I thought which was £1800. Just wondered what your thoughts were on this, I am now on a pension and this amount is just unpayable, any advice will be very much appreciated.

I think I'll be made redundant soon and am looking at all the benefits I might be entitled to. I will get some redundancy payment and was thinking of paying off some of our mortgage. Our mortgage (already) has an 'overpayment reserve' which we can 'borrow back' at any time. We could use this as a source of extra cash but how will the authorities view any money obtained like this. It will obviously result in higher interest payments so would they increase their payments or are they fixed at the outset? Thanks

I have had various loans with welcome in the past and a year or so ago I sent them a SAR to work out charges and re-claim PPI I have just used the compound interest calculator to work out what I may be owed, the total charges are £165 and with the contractual interest rate of 47.5% it works out at a massive £1789.66. How far back can you claim charges? The first one is on the 22/4/04 and the last is on the 30/10/08. Also what are welcome like for refunding charges in your experience? I have won a PPI claim from welcome in the past but not sure how different the charges claim will be. Where do I go from here? Templates would be greatly appreciated.

Hi Guys It's been a while but I have today received a court claim from Sigma and HL with regard to an old M&S account. This was not a standard credit card account. It was what they called a reserve account. I had a cheque book and could draw down on it by writing myself or anyone else a cheque. Things went badly wrong in 2009 and I defaulted on all my unsecured credit accounts following the CCA request route. They did send me what appeared to be a microfiched application form in 2009 along with some t&c's that didn't appear to be part of the same document (my application form was portrait and the terms were landscape among other things) I sent a letter saying as the document was not legible I considered it unenforceable and gave them 21 days to send another legible copy. Before they received my letter they sent what at the time was considered a defective default notice and then a reply to my letter stating the considered it enforceable! Several DCA's and final demands later in January this year I opened a letter not addressed to me but to someone I had never heard of at my address (I recognised the letter as DCA) the letter quoted my account number and my outstanding balance but was in this other persons name telling them the account had been sold to Sigma back in December. I then 10 days later got another letter from Sigma explaining that they had made a mistake and they attached another letter from M&S (with the new date) telling my account had been sold this time my name was correct! So anyway todays claim is for interest only on the account since sold to Sigma at 8%. The total is for £299.99. I have dealt with a couple of court claims in the past but am a little rusty these days so I have a few questions. Any advice would be very gratefully received. What I have done in the past is requested information under SAR and filed an embarrassed defence as they do not comply with my request. This has always worked in the past but as I say things have probably moved on in the last year or so. Is this still the basic way to go or is there a better route? Another couple of points I am wondering about but don't know the answers to.... I cannot get this interest to work out. I apparently owe a little over £5k if I work out 8% pa then divide it by 52 and times it by 29(the weeks they've owned the debt) it is more like £250. Can I insist on a breakdown of their workings out? Am I right in saying they cannot claim for any more if this claim goes ahead? If so should I think about paying this to then stop them from claiming for the balance? But if I do that does that mean I am acknowledge=ing the debt and that the 6 years statute barred rule starts from now? There was some talk some time back about it not being legal to sell to a company not registered in this country. Is that the case if so are Sigma registered here although their address is in Jersey? Thanks so much for your time again guys. Cupcake Ps a link to my initial thread in case anyone is interested http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?197653-cupcake68-Vs-M-and-S

Watchdog got wonga to agree to pay customers that have had money taken out of there bank without them knowing interest at there rate.http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00yhpzg

Hiya Just had another letter from Lowells telling me how easy it is to set up a direct debit to pay off an old mobile debt - i've disputed the debt many mnths ago but you have to admire their persistence! Anyway... they've added a line at the bottom of the letter saying "We won't add any interest to your account whilst you are repaying it". As far as I'm aware they can't do that but before I send them a letter back reminding them that they've still not supplied me with any documentation I justthought I'd pop it on here and ask if there's something I'm missing? I was going to ask them forthe T&Cs which related to adding interest or some sort of guidance which stipulated that DCAs could add interest to debts? BSBS

I made a PPI claim on a Halifax Credit card Using the spreadsheet FOSRunningPPIv101.xls I entered all statements and got totals of: PPI Payments = £2316.02 Compound Interest = 6263.15 8% Simple interest = 1634.30 TOTAL = £10,213.47 Halifax accepted the claim, but the offer is this: PPI Payments = £2316.02 Compound Interest = 0.00 8% Simple interest = 895.60 TOTAL = £3,211.62 What would cause the compound interest to be zero, is there something I have done wrong? I will attached the spreadsheet with personal details removed. FosRunningPPI v101.xls

Hi all, Im trying to find out how to work out purchase interest. I want to eventually claim these charges back but dont know how to calculate them: Vanquis state my purchase interest is : 3.433% Vanquis state my cash interest is: 3.990% Im sending off a SAR to hopefully get all account statements for the whole of the account period. I do have an old account statement reading: Previous statement: 553.78 Total Payments £24.92 Cash Interest: 0.02 Purchase Interest: £13.84 How can I calculate the cash and purchase interest to come up with those figures? Not sure how its done:| Thanks

Hi, I have a secured loan with paragon, been paying it for 7 years and so far they have charged me over £36k in interest and I have paid £39K so far. My debt has only reduced by £2,800. I want to do a spreadsheet so i can try and work out how my balance will reduce over the years, I know interest rate may change but I just want an idea of how the payments will start to reduce my balacne becasue at the moment I see no light at the end of the tunnel! This should be a 300 month term and I can't see it'll get paid off in time if over 7 years I've only cleared £2,800 off balance. I thought it might help if I culd put my payments in up until end date of July 2030 and use current interest rate just to see if it does look any better and make things a bit clearer for me. Then it should give me some hope! I called paragon and raised my concerns but they just said as long as I paid my monthly payments on time it would be clear by the end of the 300 months but I can't get my head around it. Any ideas how I can do a spreadsheet please on excel? Thanks in advance!

i will try and be brief on this one as baliff issues is not my thing an ex collegue at work has been having problems with HCEO he had a ccj for 6.5 k, with costs 7k the claimant set their dogs onto him via HCEO and all he is paying is £10 a month due to his employment status. HCEO are now saying they are going to start and charge INTEREST on the outstanding amount. the ccj judgement states judgement for the claimant and must pay 6.5 k (and interest to date of judgement) with £500 costs so my question is can HCEO charge post judgement interst when the ccj judgement is interest up to the judgement date and states nothing about post judgement intersts

Hi, New on here so im hoping someone can help. Had a look around but unsure what the best way forward is re the above company. My aunty has had someone financial problems for a few years now and recently has asked my help. She has been on a few different debt management plans with a few different companies, but after having a look around - i said it is best to do it herself. Everything has been fine with most her debts and even with Reliable collections - accepting payment plans / no calls etc. However after looking into how much she owes - i managed to get a break down of her Reliable Collections account which were old catalogues. She had two. I was disgusted to find out that she has paid back nearly 8 times the original debt. Roughly like this. Account opened - March 2005 - or thats when the records are from Bal £155 and £85 Payments £777 and £750 Charges £730 and £680 interest £580 and £510 Bal Now £770 and £600. She has pretty much paid every month since 2005 of varying amounts. Tried to manage it her self in the early stages and then regular paymetns from a couple of DM companies. So the question is - Should she stop paying (hopefully answer is YES). Should she write to them and demand a refund or something along them lines (hopefully YES again) and if so how should she word the letter i.e going to report you to so and so etc. Or as a debt collection agency - are they within there rights to do all this (hopefully NO). Any advice or template letters appreciated. Regards G

Hi, New on here so im hoping someone can help. Had a look around but unsure what the best way forward is re the above company. My aunty has had someone financial problems for a few years now and recently has asked my help. She has been on a few different debt management plans with a few different companies, but after having a look around - i said it is best to do it herself. Everything has been fine with most her debts and even with Reliable collections - accepting payment plans / no calls etc. However after looking into how much she owes - i managed to get a break down of her Reliable Collections account which were old catalogues. She had two. I was disgusted to find out that she has paid back nearly 8 times the original debt. Roughly like this. Account opened - March 2005 - or thats when the records are from Bal £155 and £85 Payments £777 and £750 Charges £730 and £680 Interest £580 and £510 Bal Now £770 and £600. She has pretty much paid every month since 2005 of varying amounts. Tried to manage it her self in the early stages and then regular paymetns from a couple of DM companies. So the question is - Should she stop paying (hopefully answer is YES). Should she write to them and demand a refund or something along them lines (hopefully YES again) and if so how should she word the letter i.e going to report you to so and so etc. Or as a debt collection agency - are they within there rights to do all this (hopefully NO). Any advice or template letters appreciated. Regards G

Hi I will be claiming back credit card charges from Lloyds for an old TSB credit card. I will be claiming interest in restitution. For the interest rate do I use the Purchase rate or the cash rate? Regards

Evening, I'm not sure if I'm posting in the correct place but I hope someone may be able to offer some advice. My husband and I went bankrupt in 2007 discharged a year later. Purchased the beneficial interest in our property for a £1 prior to discharge. Since then no problems until a year ago when my husband lost his job and one of our children was taken ill and everything that could go wrong did. We are now in a position where we are 6 months in arrears (NRAM MORTGAGE) and our home is in negative equity. Now up till now NRAM have done nothing, no letters, no phone calls nothing! We speak to them weekly and yet are no closer to finding out what they intend to do. It seems they can't decide if we are liable for any shortfall if the house is repossessed. This is where I'm confused, I thought that when buying the beneficial interest this meant that we would be liable for any shortfall if the home was ever repossessed?? In a phone call this week NRAM mentioned something about signing a deed of assignment (I know we've never done this) So basically what I'm asking does anyone know if we will be liable for any shortfall, or can we just walk away? Thanks

I have just found out that banks are not meant to take benefit money to pay bank charges. We are charged around £25 a month for the interest on are overdraft would i be able to claim that back? My nan had a bank account with natwest for years which my mum helped to deal with but when my mum died my nan put me as a named person on the account, then about 8 years ago my nan put me as a joint account holder on the account. My nan died on the 11th of september 2006 and i wrote to natwest and said that i would like to keep the account and took on the responsibility of the £1,800 overdraft which was to the max as i had used it to pay a months rent in advance and a deposit. Since then i have lost count of how many times they have charged us for being over the over draft, not having enough funds to pay a direct debit and letters, and like i said we have been charged around £25 a month since 2004 for the over draft interest charges. For all those years i was receiving income support and housing benefit in to the account until i was transferred over to income related ESA with the support component this year, i also receive DLA so any monies the bank have taken have been from either housing benefit, esa or dla. What i would like to know please is can i request the bank to refund all the bank charges that they have taken since my nan died in 2006? and can i request the bank refund the over draft charges since 2006? Also has the bank take a over draft interest charge each month can i stop them from taking that or would i have to be left with no money so it has to cause hardship to be able to claim it back? Thanks

Been lurking for a while and I'm sad to say that my experience with TFF is much the same e.g. excess interest, unjustified charges and unauthorised withdrawls from bank account. Before I take this to the next level I would appreciate some solid guidance on some of the things that have been said in this forum, not just personal speculation: 1. How much interest can they legally charge on a TFF loan even if it goes to say eight weeks and on what is that based on e.g. OFT rules? 2. How do I force the bank to charge back an unauthorised payment? My user name may give you an idea where I am going with this!

Hi, Can you pl help me with the following: This is for a friend of mine who has no PC/internet etc. She's absolutely desperate and i told her that CAG had helped me with various issues and this is her situation: She has just become unemployed again after an 8 month contract working. She had previously been unemployed for nearly 2 years. She has now been told that the DWP is linking her 2 periods of unemployment and that as she will have had 104 weeks mortgage interest they will stop paying mortgage interest in August 2012. My friend understood that if you worked for over 6 months a new claim would be started if you subsequently became unemployed through no fault of your own and mortgage interest would be payable after a 3 month wait. She is now currently left with £9 a week for herself and her son to live on. Does anyone know what the rules are? Many thanks, Wrecked.

I've come across this today ... I paid a lump sum of £2,000 a few weeks ago towards my mortgage arrears. However, the interest on arrears is more this month than last month, even though they're now £2,000 less. I enquired about this and was told that arrears are on a variable interest rate which changes, capital is on the normal rate, so I'll have to call every month if I want to know how much to pay. This is the first time I've heard of this and thought the whole balance, capital and arrears, was on the same interest rate which i'm informed of when it changes. I've never been told that arrears attract a variable interest rate. Can anyone shed any light on this?

Buenos Dias ALL, I have through this site claimed back bank charges & loan PPI but have not got into the credit cards yet as I am unsure of how to go about it and what I can claim for. I see some are talking of claiming interest,late fee's and so on. Could someone please direct me and advise me on what I can claim and any links on here on where to start. Much Appreciated Sean

Hi all, I am just starting out on this journey, I have received my charges statments from Lloyds for the past 6 years so can anyone advise on what next and is there a template for a Prelim letter

Not sure if this is in the right group, Please remove/re-direct if incorrect. Have a few items of jewelery in the pawn shop and this week I have had to renew the loans on them, Pay the interest only and get another 7 months loan. Just noticed that they are been really sly and the interest rate is changing, (in their favor) each time. Does anyone know if the interest rate is suppose to stay the same as when you borrowed or can they just change each time you renew. Borrowed £102 on a chain with an interest rate of £8.15 per month, Just been to renew (7 months up today) and paid the interest but the new ticket now claims interest at £9.17 per month. I asked the lady who was serving me, so the interest has gone up then, she replied yes, if your not happy you can cancel within 14 days.(pay the loan amount and 0.30 a day interest.) If I had the cash I would have cancelled but what are you suppose to do if your not happy with them hiking the interest up knowing you can't afford to get your goods out. Going to write to Herbert Browns and ask them also get there complaints procedure. Anyone any idea if they are allowed to do this? George

Hi, I have a few other threads for LTSB, but this new one is specific to my Loan and interest etc. I hope that I haven't duplicated over two threads but I wanted to keep this one separate. This is long, and I will try to be as concise as possible. I would like to ask for advice as what to do first, and wether the interest payments added are legal and correct. I am missing some information, and I have sent 2 SAR’s to LTSB, the 1st accidentally went to HBOS (address incorrect on ICO register and recorded signature failed so reclaiming from RM for ‘lost’) and I await the documents from the 2nd SAR. I have been reviewing all documentation from my creditors, as I have been on a DMP since June 2006, in 6 years I have reviewed frequently (with Pay Plan) and lowered repayments twice, due to rent increases etc. I still contribute quick a hefty chunk of money to my DMP, not just token payments - approx. £750 a month. This thread is for a Lloyds TSB loan, and I have adjusted the figures slightly so as not to highlight my identity to the trolls. 2004 : Loan taken - value £22,000 & PPI £5000, over 60 months (consolidated 2 previous loans) - irresponsible lending by LTSB (but thats another whole different story!) 2006 : 21 payments made and then financial difficulty 2006 : June started DMP (DMP to last 6 years but extended by 2 years as payments lowered) 2006 : LTSB refused to acknowledge DMP, harassed by many ‘arrears’ letters and threats etc, but interest appeared to have stopped. 2009 : Default notice sent over 3.5 years after ‘contractual payments’ broken 2009 : July, letter from LTSB states ‘interest frozen’ (clearly it wasn’t) 2009/2010 : Interest RE-started, no link to re-structure of DMP etc. Just re-started out of the blue. 2009 : Interest added as below, for a period of at least 6 months (I cant locate all ‘arrears statements’ at the moment) 2010 : Account defaulted, 1 year after DN sent, and 4 years after DMP started, and co-incidentally after interest added in thousands. In summary, I have paid approx. £16,000 whilst on DMP, so if interest stopped I would have a balance of a couple of thousand pounds. Instead the balance remains at over £11,000! When viewing an arrears letter I noticed a very strange calculation on the balance, I list one month example below (figures for demonstration purposes): Due Credit Debit Balance 12 Dec 09 Opening Balance 10,000 16 Dec 09 Repayment 250.00 09,750 17 Dec 09 Repayment Due 600 10,350 19 Dec 09 Interest 150 10,500 So charges of £750, my payment of £250 is not touching the balance and EACH MONTH the figure is increasing by approx. £500! Q1 : Is this correct, is this the correct accounting procedure to add the £600 contractual payment to the outstanding balance of the Loan. This certainly is not on any T&C for any LTSB previous loans (these were consolidated by I cant yet find the CCA for this loan). Q2 :If the interest was frozen initially, and then re-started can I challenge this under hardship rules? Q3: I believe I can challenge default date, as this is well over 3 years after first contractual payment missed. Is this true? At this rate the loan will never be paid, and my credit file will have this loan on there permanently. At this moment in time I don’t know if I am more p’d off at the credits administered onto the loan, or that my credit file will be permanently ruined. I do have PPI to reclaim, as it was mis-sold (cover provided elsewhere) but I am not sure at what point to reclaim, I was thinking of doind PPI reclaim after questioning the interest charges etc and thus getting the loan to a reasonable value before claiming PPI which would in effect reduce balance to 0. Sorry its a long one, but I wonder if anybody else had the same ‘service’ from lloyds on their loans under DMP? Thanks

Hi friend of mine has a loan for £2000 over a 2 year term total amount including interest is £2640 no PPI and has made 10 monthly payments but lost his job so cannot afford monthly payments and has defaulted, bank now threatening to take him to court, if they take him to court can they ask for the full term amount left which is £1540 or should they just add the interest up to the date of a court hearing.