Tinkerbelle vs Welcome Finance

[Tinkerbelle]

Sent the following letter to Welcome Finance yesterday. I have overpaid the loan, and have all the evidence to prove it. It's not a huge amount, but at the end of the day it's the principle. We all know that if I was 1 day late with my installments they'd be on the phone threatening to send the heavies round!

 

I fully expect a non-response by the 14 day deadline which falls on Monday 8th May 2006. And I also fully expect that that the person who I wrote to probably no longer even works there - so, we'll see who has gonads to pick up this issue and deal with eh!

 

===============================

 

24th April 2006

 

Mr Marc Roots

Customer Account Manager

Welcome Financial Services

102-104 Park Lane

Croydon

Surrey

CR0 1JF

 

Dear Mr Roots,

 

Re: Customer reference xxxxxx

 

I am writing with regards to my last letter to you dated 14th July 2004, a copy of which is attached.

 

To date I still have not heard anything from you regarding this matter.

 

According to my calculations I have repaid the loan in full, and I have in fact overpaid you by £50.67. I wrote to your organization on the 24th May 2004 to advise you that I would be cancelling the direct debit for this very reason. I also asked you to let me know if you did not agree with my calculations (copy of letter attached).

 

In addition to my request for a refund, you have added an unlawful £20.00 fee to the account for non – payment of a Direct Debit, even though you were advised of its cancellation in my letter dated 24th May 2004.

 

I calculate that you owe me £50.67 plus £20.00 which you have charged me in unlawful fees. The total due to me is £70.67.

 

As I have not heard anything from you regarding this matter, you have left me no alternative but to pursue this matter through the courts.

 

I trust that you will enter into a sincere dialogue with me about this matter and I am giving you 14 days to reply to me accepting unconditionally my request in principle and letting me know a date by when I will receive payment.

 

If you do not respond or you do not respond positively within this time period, I shall send you a letter before action giving you a further 14 days in which to reflect. I believe that these targets are more than sufficient for a large company such as yours with dedicated staff and departments.

 

After the expiry of my second deadline, there will be no further communication from me and I shall issue a claim through the small claims court for the sum of £70.67 + 8% interest + costs.

 

Kind regards,

[Tinkerbelle]

Following on from advice on the other Welcome Finance thread (see here http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=2902&page=2 ), I have written the following. I'm still wondering if it is worth mentioning the "optional" £100 Health Insurance that was added and I didn't ask for. Anyway here's the letter.

 

============================

Compliance Department

Welcome Financial Services

Mere Wy Ruddington Fields Business Park

Ruddington

Nottingham

NG11 6NZ

 

Dear Sirs,

 

Re: Customer reference xxxxx

 

Please find attached copies of letters that have been sent to your Branch in Croydon,

 

As the Branch have failed in the past to properly address or act on issues raised, I am formally advising you that you will now have to address this matter.

 

I trust that you will respond in a more timely fashion than your colleagues in Croydon, and look forward to hearing your response.

 

Regards,

[Tinkerbelle]

Received response today from Head Office. Letter says...

 

===================

Thank you for your recent letter.

 

As your account is administered by our Croydon Branch, I have taken the opportunity of forwarding your comments to Richard Mullan, Branch Manager, who will contact you within the next few days to discuss your comments.

 

I hope this clarifies the situation for you and trust that any future dealings you may have with the Croydon branch will not result in any further problems.

 

Should you wish to contact the branch, their telephone number is blah, blah, blah..

 

Andrew Wakefield

Compliance Services

=========================================

 

Anyway, will wait until the end of the 2 wk deadline, then proceed with the LBA.

 

The more I think about it the more I feel that I should ask for the Optional £100 Healthcare and the optional £97.93 Payment Protection Insurance. I was NEVER told this was optional, and I wasn't even given a copy of the contract that I had signed otherwise I would have queried it. I know for a fact that there is no way I would have taken out their Health Insurance for a one year loan! The more I think about it the more I get pi$$ed off to be honest. The way they handled the whole application processs was dodgy. It took them over 4 hrs to give me a £500 loan.

 

I sat in their offices while they went back and forth and left me waiting there wondering what was going on. By the time they eventually came to hand over the chq, I was just desperate to get out of there. The woman told me how much my monthly payments would be. She did say that the repayments included PAYMENT PROTECTION INSURANCE. No mention of anything else or that it was optional. Eventually they gave me the chq and said a copy of the agreement would be in the post.

 

The first time I actually laid eyes on a copy of the agreement I had signed, was a year later when I asked them for it for the 3rd time. Personally I think this has been done on purpose. If I did not have a copy of the agreement then I wouldn't know about the "optional" additions and therefore not query it.

 

I'm quite angry that I have been duped by these people.

 

Suggest and advice please??

[breadline]

You could request all notes held on you just like the customer notes at the bank, accept Welcome have an open screen and there is a lot of info written in them.

 

Possiblity that the date of your agreement being sent out is in there.

 

Even though your loan has ended that computer record gets transferred to a different department on a certain day of each month..

 

Also i can't see what year- date your loan was atken out and ended chances are the old file is still at the branch.

 

anythings worth a try. These commenst will be about your contact and about your financial situation and personal situations if you have ever advised of anything, you have a right to access them.

 

Just like any other data.

You go at them and dont stop.

 

They would rather pay you £100 refund of wrongly sold insurance than release those babies

 

BL

[Tinkerbelle]

Hi Breadline!

 

The loan agreement was signed 01/08/2003 and I paid my last installment to them on the 21/05/04. Installments were on a weekly basis.

 

Despite requests to them for a copy of the agreement I didn't receive it. I only received it once I had cancelled the Direct Debit and told them that I would not pay them any more money as according to my calculations the loan had been repaid in full, and if they felt differently they should send me evidence.

[breadline]

Branches are sloppy with there files and they can lay dormant in cabinets for sometime.

2004 may be to long though.

 

I would call and say you wish to make an appointment to discuss this problem. Advise you wish your full file to be available at the meeting for you to read.

 

Im sure there is a letter that you can present to them in which they can not refuse you sitting and reading your file.

 

It will cost £10.

 

They may well advise you where the file has gone.

They then have to advise you where.

 

Eg: I am traveling to London soon to view a folder a Labratory is holding of mine.

 

You can also add in the letter.

"I also wish to be advised of any information removed from my file before my viewing, and an explination as to why it was removed."

 

Im not very up on legal letters, ive alwasy got away with my own.

 

I suggest a PM to someone asking for help to write with legal jargon a viewing request.

 

Hope this helps some more.

 

BL

[Tinkerbelle]

Thanks Breadline!

 

I'm not too sure I want to go and sit in their offices to be honest. At the end of the day, I have the signed agreement stating how much was due under the terms of the contract. They were paid weekly by Direct Debit and I have all my statements with the payments to them fully highlighted.

 

When I wrote to them to tell them I was cancelling the Direct Debit, they were given the opportunity on two occcasions to tell me if they disagreed with my figures. They didn't.

 

They're lucky I'm even giving them a further opportunity to write to me. I could have just gone from LBA to Court Summons

 

I fully suspect that they deal with their "defaulters" in a very serious and intimidating manner. This was made pretty clear to me by the woman who dealt with my application.

 

So.....I'm going to give them a dose of their own medicine. They have proved that they cannot respond to a simple request and if this goes before a judge they haven't got a leg to stand on.

 

I overpaid them and I want it back. They mis-sold me Health care and I want it back. End of.

 

Now that my rant is over. I'm off to have some cheesecake!

 

Thanks again for all your help Breadline!

[breadline]

let us know how it goes, cheese cake, hhhmmm i hear a rumble, in the belly jungle.

 

Off to buy some cheese cake.

 

oh my even the internet is bad for my diet.

 

BL

[Tinkerbelle]

14 day deadline for response is on Monday 8th May 2006.

 

Nothing in the post today other than some info about Sky HD.

 

Will be sending LBA on Monday asking for a total of £170.67. This is made up of the money I overpaid as well as the £100 "Optional Insurance".

 

REALLY looking forward to this one!

 

Will make sure I send a copy of the summons to the lazy to**er in head office who thought it was ok to "delegate" the request back to local level. Even though I told him they were useless!!

 

He's gonna regret it!!

[Tinkerbelle]

This is what I will be sending to WC. Feedback on it's content would be most appreciated.

========================================================

 

FINAL LETTER BEFORE ACTION

 

 

Richard Mullan

Branch Manager

Welcome Financial Services

102-104 Park Lane

Croydon

Surrey

CR0 1JF

 

Dear Mr Mullan,

 

Re: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

Further to my letter dated, 24th April, I am writing to advise you that I intend to proceed with Legal Action against you.

 

As I stated in my letter of the 24th April 2006, I have repaid the loan in full, and I have in fact overpaid you by £50.67.

 

I wrote to your organization on the 24th May 2004 to advise you that I would be cancelling the direct debit for this very reason, and I also asked you to let me know if you did not agree with my calculations.

 

In addition to my request for a refund, you have added an unlawful £20.00 fee to the account for non – payment of a Direct Debit, even though you were advised of its cancellation in my letter dated 24th May 2004.

 

I am also pursuing the return of a £100 “Optional Health Insurance” that was added to the account. I did not ask for this insurance, nor was it ever pointed out to me that it was optional. In fact, the first time I was actually aware of this Health Insurance was when I received a copy of the Credit Agreement. Despite several request for a copy, the Credit Agreement was only sent out to me once the loan had been repaid.

 

I calculate that you owe me £150.67 plus £20.00 which you have charged me in unlawful fees. The total due to me is £170.67. You have 14 days from the date of this letter in which to send me a cheque for this amount.

 

If you do not respond within this timeframe, then I will issue a claim through the small claims court for the sum of £170.67 + 8% interest + costs.

[Seminole]

That looks fine to me.

[Tinkerbelle]

Thank you Seminole!

 

With regards to the interest, I have used the Excel Spreadsheet and charged them 8% from the dates the overpayments were made and the date they charged me the Late Payment Fee.

 

I understand that we add 8% interest to Illegal Fees at the Moneyclaim stage.

 

Would it be ok to apply this methodology to monies that have been overpaid to Welcome Finance? It's not an illegal charge so i'm unsure if it can be treated the same way with regards to applying interest.

[Seminole]

I'm not sure of the answer to that. I'm pretty certain that you could charge it from the date that they refused to repay you (either the date of a letter from them them or a couple of days after you posted your letter to them asking for it back if they didn't reply). As to whether you could get it back from the date of the payment, I guess this would depend upon whether they deliberately desprived you of the money.

[Tinkerbelle]

I asked them back in 2004 to repay me the money I had overpaid them .

 

They didn't refuse to pay it, they chose to ignored me instead

[Seminole]

In that case I think I would make the claim for interest from a couple of days after you sent them the letter.

[Tinkerbelle]

Thanks for the advice

[breadline]

Hey tinks

If thinking about it logically surely you could charge interest form teh time your cash was sitting in there system.

 

They have held your money knowing it not thiers and they have been gaining interest on it.

 

if thsi is to include the over payment of £100 tehn it could take you back in possibly into the last 2 payments.

 

teh only down side is on teh forum it states go for repaymnet with out interest as you stand abetter chance.

 

worth thinking about or enquiring for that extar time with the interest though ;-)

 

BL

[Tinkerbelle]

Not sure what you are saying BL!

 

When it comes to Moneyclaim I'm going to claim the 8% on the £20.00 Late Payment Fee they added to the account anyway.

 

I'm not going to claim any interest on the £100 mis-sold "Optional" Health Insurance.

 

I am thinking of claiming 8% interest on the £50.67p that I have overpaid them, and I am thinking of claiminig it from the date that it left my Bank Account in May 2004.

 

My question is regarding the interest on the money I Overpaid - the £50.67. Personally I think it is reasonable to add interest on this amount as they have been earning interest on money that is not theirs anyway!

[breadline]

HI Tinks

if you win the fact that you where miss sold the Health insurance then they have also had £100 of yours sat in thier bank.

 

if in your statement it says at a certain time your payment was taken to cover that insurance then that is how long they have held your £100 under that reason.

 

Why not apply interest to taht also as if you have a refund then they admit they should not of had it and its yours and they repay it, which means you should have teh interest you could have earned with it.

 

Regarding the claiming of interest, it is advised in the forum that you only apply interest at court level so as to make your request for a refund more acceptable to the banks.

 

But its an individuals choice.

If i was going for £57.00 id have a go at getting everything.

 

BL

[Tinkerbelle]

Thanks BL.... I had no intention of applying interest before the Court Stage.

 

I wouldn't know how to begin working out interest for the £100 as it was added to the loan and repaid over a year. I suppose if I wanted to really be awkward, I'd sit down and calculate how much the repayments would have been without the £100 Health Insurance. I'm not in the mood for all that right now. At the least I want back my £50.67.

 

I'll think about it over the wk-end.

[I_feel_cheated]

Hi

Can you let us know the outcome of your case with Welcome. I took out a loan with Welcome, and then had a top up load. Was made redundant and claimed under the insurance but I wasn't happy with the policy and told them that and advised them at the time I took it out I feel it was missold. The file was looged in Feb, have heard nothing apart from the usual letter saying branch manager was dealing with it.

Thanks

Oh and now I think about it I'm looking into the top up loan and everything to do with them, I don't trust them one bit

[Tinkerbelle]

I didn't bother to pursue this any further.

[Tinkerbelle]

This topic was closed on 09 March 2019.

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