Mills v Cahoot

[mills1]

Following complaint to them received this:

 

I am writing in relation to your email we received on 18/01/10. I have now taken ownership of your email to provide a detailed response to you.

 

We stopped selling new loan accounts in 2006 and have only been servicing active loans since that time.

 

As a business decision we have now changed limits and going forward, we will be removing the facility to withdraw funds to further reduce our loan base.

 

The decision that we have made is not in breach of our Terms and Conditions. We can make changes to the way your account works provided that we give you 30 days notice, but can vary your account limit at any time.

 

This is in accordance with section 5.1 of your flexible loan Terms and Conditions:

 

“5.1 We will determine your flexible loan limit from time to time and tell you what it is.”

 

A full copy of these conditions can be found on your cahoot personal homepage (the link is located towards the bottom left of your homepage).

 

We are also following best practice in relation to the Banking Code standards and FSA regulations by providing evidence of responsible lending.

 

Please note that this is in no way a reflection on how you have managed your account and applies to all flexible loans.

 

I hope you can understand the reasons for our decision. If you are unhappy with our decision, you can refer your complaint to our Central Complaints team.

 

You can either write to: PO Box 5129, Santander House, Grafton Gate East, Milton Keynes, MK10 1PQ,

Email: complaints@santander.co.uk or,

Call: 0845 600 6014 or Type talk on: 18001 0845 600 6014.

 

If you are still unhappy with our outcome you may have the availability of referring your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service.

 

If we do not hear from you within 8 weeks we will consider your complaint closed.

 

Kind regards

Hugh Choudhury

cahoot

 

 

 

 

Thoughts anyone?

[craigers]

Methinks Santander is just winding up cahoot's operations. Eventually I think cahoot will disappear.

[mills1]

Is the agreement enforceable ( above ) can someone in the know please comment?

Thanks a lot.

[supasnooper]

Looks enforceable to me.

 

Have a look at these links which may help you understand the enforceabilty of the paperwork (courtesy of 42man & steven4064) -

 

 

Is My Agreement Enforceable - Useful

Consumer Credit Agreements

[mills1]

Thankyou Supasnooper

But what about the letter they sent with the alleged original agreement?

Particularly the paragraph :

 

" Under the consumer credit (cancellation notices and copies of documents) regulations 1983 we can comply with the legal requirements by sending you a copy of an agreement in the same form as the one you signed but may exclude the signature box,customer signture and the date of signature"

 

Is the above correct?

[mills1]

Recent email from Cahoot:

 

"We recently wrote to you to make you aware that over the coming months we are commencing a programme to upgrade our banking systems. This means that we will be implementing some changes to our current products and processes that may impact you. We will try and keep any changes to a minimum.

 

 

Changes to your loan

This communication is to inform you of changes we are making to the management of your flexible loan. cahoot is a trading division of Santander UK plc and as cahoot no longer offers loan products, we are transferring the management of your loan account to Santander. We will confirm the exact date of transfer in the next few weeks.

 

I'd like to reassure you that your account number, interest rate and payment date will all remain the same.

 

 

Once the transfer is complete

Once the transfer is complete, we will be replacing online access to your loan with contact centre support. As a result, you will be able to change your payment amount and date by telephone and you will start to receive your statements through the post, so please ensure that we have the correct postal address details for you. This is a notice of variation to your terms and conditions and condition 3.4 of the cahoot flexible loan conditions will be varied as follows -

 

 

3.4(a)If at any time you wish to change the payment date or change the amount of your monthly payment, you can do so by giving us instructions by telephone. You must give us instructions at least 15 working days prior to the payment date otherwise we will carry out your instructions with effect from the payment date in the following month. (b)We will send you statements relating to your cahoot flexible loan by post

 

If you have chosen to protect your loan with our cahoot payment protection insurance, your cover will continue and you will receive a separate communication confirming the details.

 

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you for choosing cahoot and to remind you to look out for a subsequent communication confirming the transfer date and contact centre phone number.

 

 

Yours sincerely,

 

Clare Hopper

Head of Customer Contact"

 

 

" Cahoot no longer offers loan products "

 

Hmmmm:

"cahoot are part of Santander - so if you're looking for a Personal Loan we may be able to help. Simply give us

a call, alternatively you can simply drop into your local Santander branch.

This Personal Loan lets you choose a loan amount from £1,000 to £20,000 and you can choose to repay your loan between one and five years all at a fixed interest rate.

So whether you are looking to finance a new or used car, or to simply transfer existing credit card and loan balances, this Personal Loan could be for you.

To find out more, simply contact Santander in any of the following ways:

• Call us on 0870 609 2430 from 8am to 9pm Monday to Friday, 8am - 4pm Saturday
  
• Or simply pop into your local Santander branch "
  

You could not make it up!

[Carningli]

Hello mills1,

 

I can only agree with your sentiments "You could not make it up". Has anyone at the Santander end sat down and really thought through this one? A so called major banking operation (Foreign to this Country) buys out a UK based operation and then, without a word of explanation sets about breaking it up, without any reference to it's clients, what has the famousl FSA been up to?. As a last thought we'll ignore all the reasons why Cahoot was set up as an internet bank (and a good one at that) to absorb it's clients into a banking structure which most were trying to avoid. Why don't they have the guts to say that they don't believe in internet banking and give their reasons why? Incidentally I am surprised not to see more comment about Cahoot on this forum. Those who are on should stick together and keep each other advise of progress. To do this at the end of the Tax return period is daft. I can't give much attention to their timescale until Feb.

 

Carningli

[mills1]

They need to be more up front to be honest.

Saying in one breath that they ( cahoot ) do not offer loans, yet I looked on the Cahoot website yesterday and there it was!

The point is they want to basically go backwards, but as you say, they will not admit it.

[unfoundfuture]

I have noticed on your agreemnet that the subsituted company name is Abbey National Cahoot Ltd, I have searched the FSA and OFT registers and this company name does not exist under the license No? has anyone got any thoughts on this

[mills1]

I am probably not the one to ask about the company name sorry.

Would it make any difference with enforcement?

Perhaps someone can enlighten?

Thanks anyway.

[mills1]

Hello mills1,

 

I can only agree with your sentiments "You could not make it up". Has anyone at the Santander end sat down and really thought through this one? A so called major banking operation (Foreign to this Country) buys out a UK based operation and then, without a word of explanation sets about breaking it up, without any reference to it's clients, what has the famousl FSA been up to?. As a last thought we'll ignore all the reasons why Cahoot was set up as an internet bank (and a good one at that) to absorb it's clients into a banking structure which most were trying to avoid. Why don't they have the guts to say that they don't believe in internet banking and give their reasons why? Incidentally I am surprised not to see more comment about Cahoot on this forum. Those who are on should stick together and keep each other advise of progress. To do this at the end of the Tax return period is daft. I can't give much attention to their timescale until Feb.

 

Carningli

 

 

They certainly do not believe in internet banking, Carningli

I cannot even access my account online now to check my balance etc

When I attempt to I am greeted with words to the effect " all enquiries must now be directed through this phone number " then lists a number to call.

They have also informed me to change my banking details to reflect a new account number and sort code that future payments should go to!

If this is not termination of an agreement by the back door I do not know what is?

[vjohn82]

The only Abbey National registered at that address is:

 

ABBEY NATIONAL (CF TRUSTEE) LIMITED

2 TRITON SQUARE

REGENT'S PLACE

LONDON

UNITED KINGDOM

NW1 3AN

Company No. 03283088

 

Hope this helps

[jondavis30]

Hi,

 

Having worked for cahoot for a period of time, I am able to provide some advice on this. Please note I am no longer employed with the business.

 

Despite what staff at cahoot will tell you, I think they are actually winding up their operations, based on things that I have seen, which are as follows :

 

-Essential Processing and Banking Team moved to Madrid &

-Foreign Transfers processed in Poland

-Applications Dept Close at cahoot HQ in Coventry and moved to another building in bradford

 

In addition to this, depsite what staff tell you, cahoot seem to be winding up their lending operations, and have been trying to do this for a number of years.

 

In 2006, cahoot terminated the sale of all lending facilities, and even stopped credit limit increases on credit cards at this point too.

 

The flexi loan and the Fixed Rate Loans have both been serviced since this date, with no intention of reopening the sale of their lending products. All flexi loans that have had zero balances for more than a period of time have been closed, (using the clause in the terms that they can terminate dormant accounts, or something to that effect).

 

The credit cards have also been closed that have a zero balance and any flexi loans that were in credit due to overpayments by customers have been closed that were left open and dormant for up to 3 years in some cases.

 

The lending base for cahoot appears to me, as an employee until 14th Jan 2010, even though there was a lack of comms to staff about it, to be winding up.

 

There was talk of the lending facilities being moved to Abbey National, more importantly, the flexi loan facilities were due to be terminated and effectively turned into fixed rate loans, with Abbey National (now Santander) becoming the new lender, and notification of this being sent to customers 30 days prior to the actual accounts moving over to abbey.

 

As far as I know, both Cahoot and Santander have been working towards a universal platform that mimmicks the parthenon systems that are currently used by Santander, and that Abbey have used for some time.

 

Effecitvely, this means that anyone in the Santander Group (unconfirmed if platform is going to be universal) can access cahoot accounts, possibly cutting down operations at cahoot HQ in coventry.

 

This follows the loss of over 100 jobs 3 years ago when admin, processing and applications staff were made redundant, and the lack of recruitment and a large loss of staff over the past 12 months due to staff leaving etc, you figure it out, its kind of obvious.

 

What lies next for cahoot is unknown, and unfortunately, what I do know about what could happen with cahoot I am unable to say as it could land me a lawsuit because its information that they explicitly don't want to launch into mainstream public knowledge yet.

[mills1]

Is there a template letter I can fire off to Cahoot to Complain about them hiking the Interest rates ?

Cheers.

[jondavis30]

Is there a template letter I can fire off to Cahoot to Complain about them hiking the Interest rates ?

Cheers.

 

unfortunately there's nothing you can do about the hike in interest rates on the flexible loan because they will just use the clause that 'it's a flexible loan product with variable interest rates' they will also tell you that it's due to a rise on the bank of England base rate that they went up, but the reason they are keeping it high now is 'the cost of running the flexible loan has increased and therefore we have decided not to review our interest rates at this time'. The best thing for you to do is take out a fixed loan with another lender, ensuring you call cahoot on 02476 627 190 ( this is the landline number for the premium rate number of 0844 9000 900) to get a settlement quote.

[mills1]

Jon,cheers for the reply.

In another thread there is a cahoot customer who has succeeded in getting interest back by complaining to the fos.

I am looking at doing the same myself.

[mills1]

http://i772.photobucket.com/albums/y...pha/cahoot.jpg

 

 

Is anyone able to confirm as true what cahoot are trying to tell me?

I am making token payments at the moment and they do not seem to be pushing the issue yet.

Thanks.