Visitors to the site are reminded that the details contained within user comments are uncorroborated and as such should not be read as fact but as the opinion of the person who left the comment.
Comments:
Payment protection insurance (PPI), is an add on coverage that is designed to insure against the loss of payment for monthly installments of loans and credit cards. It is often provided by banks and other financial institutions. most of the time PPIs are mis-sold
So you all took a loan out and spent the money happily but when it comes to paying it back then it's a different matter!!!
After reading all these blogs I can only believe that you have yourself to blame, you don't need to be a genius to work out the total repayable for a loan just multiply the monthly payment by the term and I'd you don't like it then don't take th loan!!
You seem shocked that you were charged interest... Really!! It's a loan company not a charity!!!
I had a loan with Welcome when I could not get a loan elsewhere, I paid it each month and nether had an issue with the service. It was expensive but I had defaults so it's to be expected but now my credit file had improved.
If you go through life spending more than you earn then you will be in debt, if you can't pay your debt then it's your fault as you should have spent the money in the first place. Saying that you had to as it was an 'emergency' if simply not true.
I have no sympathy for any of you, you took the money, signs the contract and you should pay it back, you would not expect any different if you lent money to someone!
Finally, I am pretty sure you are not perfect people so shouldn't really judge others, especially calling someone a little gay guy!
i took aloan with welcome ,i payed them £2015,i owed them £700 but lost my job,they never contacted me untill i got a letter last week 2011( 6 years after i last heard any thing from them)from a debt collection agency saying i owe £1220.so they have not contacted me so they can add interest on ,there should be a law about not contacting a borrower for so long and adding interest
Can somebody please help me.I took out a secured loan of 10k nearlly 5 years ago.At the time they added a mortgage indemnity fee off £1,335.00.Can anybody tell me if they were allowed to do this legally,or is it something i can look into claiming back,as this was never explained to me at the time.
I have a loan for 2k with them, I ran into finance difficulty when my wife left me and asked welcome to reduce the payments which they declined to do, the loan is unsecured and I stay in rented accommodation, at the moment I can barely afford to live never mind paying this crowd, what would happen if I stopped all payments with them, don't want to but cant see any other way of surviving. I'm in full time work and do not claim any benefits. welcome finance are very unsympathetic to my situation.
came across this website as i am looking for advice on how to deal with an old debt i have with welcome finance.please , please do not take a loan out with them no matter how desperate you are.myself & my partner took a loan out for a few thousand with them 5 years ago after buying our 1st house together.we were paying £50 pr week back, until my partner got made redundant. we contacted them straight away & asked if we could reduce our weekly payment. they said no and we struggled on,in the end we refused to pay £50 pr week, as we had a suspended repossesion order on our house & showed our court documents to the local branch manager of welcome who kept "visiting" our house and told him that we had to pay arrears off our mortgate to keep our house.
as a last resort we tried to remortgate our house so that we could clear our arrears on our house & also our arrears with welcome. then welcome even stopped us from doing this by refusing to lift the secured loan off our house temporarily so we could keep our house.we were told by our mortgate company that most " decent finance companies" would do this and that they were being unreasonable.in the end we went back to court & lost our house, the district judge did say that they had behaved badly, and that welcome could of at least let us reduce our payments, so that we had a chance of paying off our mortgage arrears. he also said that he would be happy to deal with the case should they ever try and take us to court.a short time after i contacted them about paying my loan off,a very nice lady said that i could take a 2nd job on to pay them, despite the fact that we both already worked and my son was only 10 months old at the time.since then i have had no further contact apart from the odd "threatening" letter about how they are going to take my house & property.they will find this difficult though as my house is a rented housing association property.i can no longer get any credit due to the interest & charges added to my debt & placed on my credit file, so please steer clear of welcome finance.
we had a car loan and a small loan with these horrible people in 2006 apx and weve had nothing but hassle since then,my husband nearly died of pnemonia in 2008 so i went to their office to tel them that i maybe would start to struggle they put me in a room with a lil gay bloke who had me in tears and vertually told me to go and beg for the money.since then we have had threaten calls and letters no evidence of payment prtection being paid but then it all died down for nearly 18 months when a woman turned up at our home and said we hadnt been paying so my husband gave her a handful of reciepts to prove we have and she asked to take them but he said nothing else wil be paid till we get them back and we stil havent got them to this day. no that the company are going t.ts up though they have debt company strying to get what ever they can of u offering u what they think is a good deal i.e £3800 for a car thats only worth £900 and thats a 50% discount lol.u know what they can go do.and as for they blagger on here who works for them lais/lois someone who thinks the sun shines out their backside WHERES YOUR LOVELY LIFESTYLE UPTO DATE BILLS AND NICE HOUSES NOW probably not even got a job anymore thats the kind of customer service they provide...disgusting.anyway goodluck to anyone fighting welcome (or not so) finance at the moment stand your ground n if that fails take THEM to court.
we had a car on hp with welcome. my partner lost his job and we fell behind with the payments. They have now passed our debt on to a debt recovery company which has written to us asking for £xx. can anyone tell me if we can sell this car as the co its been passed to is only interested in the cash and not the car.
Whilst I agree to a certain extent with any welcome worker that has posted on this site, I happen to believe that a companies employees follow the companies personaility. With that comes trust, integrity, compassion and solid guidance which in fairness should be correctly installed by a company.
Unfortunately, (for WF) being a credit analyst, I can safely say that, although there are obviously some people that work for this company with the above characteristics, the majority of the employees follow suit with this disgraceful companies business and life ethics.
The main responsibility as a creditor is to adhere to whether the consumer is in a suitable position of affordability to take on a sensible level of debt. Most people who come to Welcome Finance do so because other credit providers follow these sensible routes of lending.
Welcome Finance do not. They offer a high interest loan in which they will offer you a level of funds with an absurd level on interest (which on average is 179% over the average level of debt taken - basically £5000 over 3 years which is £8900).
Interest rates have increased for this company in recent times because they are in trouble financially (which is ironic to say the very least). I have first hand experience with this company and I can let anybody know that no matter how desperate you are for a loan - do not take one out with Welcome).
My advice would be to contact the civil service or a temporary solution is to speak to a debt management company in order to slow the debt down if it is becoming out of control.
Bottom line is - NEVER USE WELCOME FINANCE.
Also, if you have taken out a loan with Welcome Finance pre April 2007 - you can claim your PPI (Payment Protection Insurance) payments back plus statutory interest plus compensation.
There are certain companies who offer this service on a 'no win - no fee' basis but will charge a service fee of upto £200 upfront which I would not advise.
There is one company which offers a 'no win - no fee' service with no upfront fee which is Empire.
As someone who was in debt I hope you all can resolve your arrears and I would suggest fighting any disbutable charges/claims from Welcome. Obviously, if you owe them money it is only right you pay them back as you're the one who has agreed to the loan. However, they will try to bleed as much money from customers as possible.
Also, try reduce settlement payments as a full and final payment to settle the account. Do research before trying to negotiate though, you need to be fairly savvy before trying this.
Consumer Credit Act 2006
The Consumer Credit Act 2006 amends the 1974 Consumer Credit act and aims to ensure that the UK consumer credit market operates in the interests of consumers in a 'fair, clear and competitive' way.
As a responsible lender, Cattles welcomed the review of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 and contributed fully to all consultations during its passage through Parliament.
Changes include:
New licensing powers for the Office of Fair Trading (OFT);
Unfair Relationships replaces the 1974 Extortionate Credit Provisions along with an Alternative Dispute Resolution;
Removal of the £25,000 limit on agreements regulated by the CCA 2006;
Interest on default sums (simple only); and
Greater transparency - statements, arrears and default notices.
Between 2004 and 2005 new regulations were implemented covering advertising, early settlement of loans and transparency of pre-contract information.
Customers now receive pre-contractual information that clearly sets out the key figures for their loan, in advance of the agreement. In addition, customers are provided with three examples of the amounts they might receive back at certain points in the loan, if they choose to settle early.
The revised early settlement regulations, which came into force on 31 May 2005, introduced new methods of calculation of settlement figures. These are more advantageous to consumers than was previously contained in regulations.
Unfair Relationships replacing the 1974 Extortionate Credit provisions became law in April 2007 along with an Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) scheme provided by the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS). Companies have eight weeks to resolve complaints prior to a possible referral to the FOS.
In which case no agreements should be signed until you have seen the figures. No matter what the branch say.
I would advise anyone who already has a loan with this company not to sign anything until you have read through the documents. Certainly do not sign when they sya they will readjust the figures afterwards and then back date it. They could put anything on there. They are not to be trusted. My experience has been 10 years of awful harrassment and unhappiness. If you do not have a loan with them, don't get one, no matter how bad you need the money. They will bleed you dry forever. If you don't have a loan, leave it that way !!!! They will try and harrass you and scare you in to signing agreements that you do not want to sign. Isn't there this legislation where you can have loans written off. If you sign a new agreement they will more than likely be making sure you cannot use this agains them. We were given a secured loan without a valuation. Which responsible company does this. I did not find this out until after everything was signed. Stay away from Welcome Finance it is just not worth the long term hassle.
Not Welcome. I cannot seem to get a clear answer from anyone within the company. I have just had my PPI refunded (although not recieved the check yet) as it was mis-sold. The now require me to Sign a New agreement before they can 'Restructure' the original agreement. However they say they will backdate the Loan to its Original Date and then reduce my payments but how can I trust them to do this. The have sent the new agreement and its for the Full amount of the original loan, I assume I am to put the Date that the Original loan was signed onto this New agreement but they are very vague, I have nearly 18 months of payments already made on my original agreement which should be tranfered to the new agreement but they will not give me any figures until I sign and they can 'Re-adjust' the Loan amount. Does anyone know if its Legal to Backdate such an agreement ? Please help !
i wouldn't recommend this company to anyone , not even for a small loan ,
they are loan sharks and nothing but,
if i had a loan off a bank and ran into difficulty with the repayments the bank would help me come to some solution , they would take my property as a last resort,
not welcome finance,
they harass you, threaten you, how does 15 telephone calls in one morning sound, because that's what they did to a member of my family today, and wait for it, they want to charge for the calls too,
charges for letters , when they have already telephoned you that day, but will still send a letter with a charge of 10 or 20 pounds,
this company is bad news, they really need reporting , they target certain people who fall into certain category,s ,
they send people round to your home,
the list is endless,
i have advised my family member to report them , someone needs to do something about them,
I am sure everyone that has posted on this company previously is monitoring the financial situation of parent company Cattles with great interest. Hints of fraud and mis-management abound in the press, together with news of massive losses, FSA involvement, 1000 job losses and the firm allegedly struggling to meet a £500M debt repayment due in July.
There is lots of information on the net but some of the easiest to find is on guardian.co.uk and just search the site for "Cattles". It makes fascinating reading for anyone who has had experience of this company.
This company is a last chance saloon for those people who cannot get a loan anywhere else. The interest rates are huge and the employees add as many insurances on as possible so that they get commission. If you get a loan from this company you will probably end up paying 3/4 times as much as you borrowed and be worse off.
In response to the previous comment, your son is over the age of 18 years and as long as he had proof of address then there was nothing to prevent them lending your son the money. It was a personal loan, which is not secured on your property, hence they did not need to contact you, if they did they would have breached data protection. Much as they have a 'shark' reputation, they are in fact heavily regulated by the FSA as are banks and other lending institutions, but with the recent turbulence in the market, would you trust any of these companies right now? I've been in this industry for 3 years I was with Welcome for some of that time...glad to say I got out as soon as I could, not one of the best companies to work for and its quite pleasing to see the're finally getting their comeuppence, I won't whistleblow what went on but lets just say its a case of "pass the buck" and "Don't Get Caught"...
my 19 year old son took out a loan with this company in October 2008, for £1500. he was paying them £132 per month over three years, paying back just under £5000. I only found out about this just before christmas when it came to light my son had £5000 worth of debt this included, but that this was the only one he was paying, I took out a loan with my bank and cleared his debts. what annoyed me about this company was that my son had used my address to get the loan and they made no checks to see if it was alright to give him the loan against my home. we asked for a settlement figure which was £2033, I went into their Hamilton office to pay this only to be told they would not accept the payment in full. 1 lady was willing to take £1500, the assistant manageress was willing to take £1800 and did I want her to lose her job by taking more(couldn't care if she did), then they sent in the big boy, the manager, who was willing to take £1900 or did I want him to lose his job. as I pointed out to these people they willingly gave my son the loan against my home as per the note at the bottom of letter that all charges against the property would be withdrawn on full settlement. I left their office and had to return the money back to my bank account then phone their helpline to pay the settlement figure, which thankfully went through without a hitch. this company preys on people especially the young and those who are desperate and can see no other way out. the government needs to do something about these companies, their interest rate is sitting at 66.23 and we talk about loan sharks, these are the worst kind of loan sharks. I would like to thank may of welcome finance for her help in sorting out my being able to clear this debt over the phone, as for the Hamilton branch people keep clear of them
I have had mixed experiences of this company. I went to them for a £3000 loan in mid 2007. I applied online and then dealt with their call centre, not a local branch. The loan was approved and I sent through all the documents they required. I received the money after some delay but subsequently changed my mind about about the PPI so cancelled that within the cooling off period. It did take them 2 months to adjust the instalments, and I had to make numerous phone calls to get it done, but it was eventually sorted.
I have maintained the payments by direct debit and am now well over half way through the loan period. I have had no hassle from WF, but a few months ago they did ring me from the Exeter local office and asked if I required any further funding, saying they could improve the interest rate as my credit score was quite good. Initially I said no, but decided a couple of months later to take a further £2000. I went over to the Exeter office feeling quite confident, and was left sitting on my own in an office for half an hour after which the young lady came back and told me I had been declined as I did not have enough funds remaining to make the payments after other commitments - even though the new repayments were to be about the same as my current payments and my financial situation had improved since my original loan was granted. They did not ask me about my income and expenditure on other commitments so I was not clear how they could say this. I explained this to the lady and she said that it was because I had applied for my original loan through the Head Office Callcentre "who fiddle with the figures to sign people up, but we are not allowed to do that".
The loan was not vital, so I shrugged my shoulders and walked away, but was annoyed that I had made a 70 mile round trip and wasted almost an hour in their office on a wild goose chase especially as I had been told several times "if you maintain your payments extra funds are always available".
I think under the FSA's Treating Customers Fairly criteria this is not really providing the customer with accurate information. However, being now within sight of paying off the loan I am now quite pleased that I did not enter into another agreement with this company.
The positive thing about WF is that everyone I have dealt with has been very pleasant and polite, which is certainly something in their favour
I throughly enjoyed my time at Welcome and did my upmost to help any customer that was experiencing financial difficulties.
I feel for the employees as they have to put up with customers talking to them like something they are wiping off their shoe if they can't pay or if their car goes wrong.
I had a leaking roof but I didn't stop paying my mtg!
The jobs is good but the stress and pressure you are put under to exceed blueprint targets is too much and encourages staff to ensure customers take ppi/warranty's, emergency home care insurance etc.
Thankfully I no longer work in this industry
(sub prime sales/debt collecting)
the company is a massive sausage machine that burns you out then doesn't give a toss what you do.
If your an employee and are enjoying it then you need to go help an underperforming branch and understand what real commitment is.
For those customer who were pressurised into taking insurance they didn't want you need to complain. You may have a poor credit score but you are still entitled to be given the choice!
Add a comment about this blagger
Visitors to the site are reminded that the details contained within user comments are uncorroborated and as such should not be read as fact but as the opinion of the person who left the comment.
Comments:
After reading all these blogs I can only believe that you have yourself to blame, you don't need to be a genius to work out the total repayable for a loan just multiply the monthly payment by the term and I'd you don't like it then don't take th loan!!
You seem shocked that you were charged interest... Really!! It's a loan company not a charity!!!
I had a loan with Welcome when I could not get a loan elsewhere, I paid it each month and nether had an issue with the service. It was expensive but I had defaults so it's to be expected but now my credit file had improved.
If you go through life spending more than you earn then you will be in debt, if you can't pay your debt then it's your fault as you should have spent the money in the first place. Saying that you had to as it was an 'emergency' if simply not true.
I have no sympathy for any of you, you took the money, signs the contract and you should pay it back, you would not expect any different if you lent money to someone!
Finally, I am pretty sure you are not perfect people so shouldn't really judge others, especially calling someone a little gay guy!
as a last resort we tried to remortgate our house so that we could clear our arrears on our house & also our arrears with welcome. then welcome even stopped us from doing this by refusing to lift the secured loan off our house temporarily so we could keep our house.we were told by our mortgate company that most " decent finance companies" would do this and that they were being unreasonable.in the end we went back to court & lost our house, the district judge did say that they had behaved badly, and that welcome could of at least let us reduce our payments, so that we had a chance of paying off our mortgage arrears. he also said that he would be happy to deal with the case should they ever try and take us to court.a short time after i contacted them about paying my loan off,a very nice lady said that i could take a 2nd job on to pay them, despite the fact that we both already worked and my son was only 10 months old at the time.since then i have had no further contact apart from the odd "threatening" letter about how they are going to take my house & property.they will find this difficult though as my house is a rented housing association property.i can no longer get any credit due to the interest & charges added to my debt & placed on my credit file, so please steer clear of welcome finance.
Unfortunately, (for WF) being a credit analyst, I can safely say that, although there are obviously some people that work for this company with the above characteristics, the majority of the employees follow suit with this disgraceful companies business and life ethics.
The main responsibility as a creditor is to adhere to whether the consumer is in a suitable position of affordability to take on a sensible level of debt. Most people who come to Welcome Finance do so because other credit providers follow these sensible routes of lending.
Welcome Finance do not. They offer a high interest loan in which they will offer you a level of funds with an absurd level on interest (which on average is 179% over the average level of debt taken - basically £5000 over 3 years which is £8900).
Interest rates have increased for this company in recent times because they are in trouble financially (which is ironic to say the very least). I have first hand experience with this company and I can let anybody know that no matter how desperate you are for a loan - do not take one out with Welcome).
My advice would be to contact the civil service or a temporary solution is to speak to a debt management company in order to slow the debt down if it is becoming out of control.
Bottom line is - NEVER USE WELCOME FINANCE.
Also, if you have taken out a loan with Welcome Finance pre April 2007 - you can claim your PPI (Payment Protection Insurance) payments back plus statutory interest plus compensation.
There are certain companies who offer this service on a 'no win - no fee' basis but will charge a service fee of upto £200 upfront which I would not advise.
There is one company which offers a 'no win - no fee' service with no upfront fee which is Empire.
As someone who was in debt I hope you all can resolve your arrears and I would suggest fighting any disbutable charges/claims from Welcome. Obviously, if you owe them money it is only right you pay them back as you're the one who has agreed to the loan. However, they will try to bleed as much money from customers as possible.
Also, try reduce settlement payments as a full and final payment to settle the account. Do research before trying to negotiate though, you need to be fairly savvy before trying this.
Good luck.
The Consumer Credit Act 2006 amends the 1974 Consumer Credit act and aims to ensure that the UK consumer credit market operates in the interests of consumers in a 'fair, clear and competitive' way.
As a responsible lender, Cattles welcomed the review of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 and contributed fully to all consultations during its passage through Parliament.
Changes include:
New licensing powers for the Office of Fair Trading (OFT);
Unfair Relationships replaces the 1974 Extortionate Credit Provisions along with an Alternative Dispute Resolution;
Removal of the £25,000 limit on agreements regulated by the CCA 2006;
Interest on default sums (simple only); and
Greater transparency - statements, arrears and default notices.
Between 2004 and 2005 new regulations were implemented covering advertising, early settlement of loans and transparency of pre-contract information.
Customers now receive pre-contractual information that clearly sets out the key figures for their loan, in advance of the agreement. In addition, customers are provided with three examples of the amounts they might receive back at certain points in the loan, if they choose to settle early.
The revised early settlement regulations, which came into force on 31 May 2005, introduced new methods of calculation of settlement figures. These are more advantageous to consumers than was previously contained in regulations.
Unfair Relationships replacing the 1974 Extortionate Credit provisions became law in April 2007 along with an Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) scheme provided by the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS). Companies have eight weeks to resolve complaints prior to a possible referral to the FOS.
In which case no agreements should be signed until you have seen the figures. No matter what the branch say.
they are loan sharks and nothing but,
if i had a loan off a bank and ran into difficulty with the repayments the bank would help me come to some solution , they would take my property as a last resort,
not welcome finance,
they harass you, threaten you, how does 15 telephone calls in one morning sound, because that's what they did to a member of my family today, and wait for it, they want to charge for the calls too,
charges for letters , when they have already telephoned you that day, but will still send a letter with a charge of 10 or 20 pounds,
this company is bad news, they really need reporting , they target certain people who fall into certain category,s ,
they send people round to your home,
the list is endless,
i have advised my family member to report them , someone needs to do something about them,
There is lots of information on the net but some of the easiest to find is on guardian.co.uk and just search the site for "Cattles". It makes fascinating reading for anyone who has had experience of this company.
Adrianintheuk at 5th Jun 2009, 09:33AM
I have maintained the payments by direct debit and am now well over half way through the loan period. I have had no hassle from WF, but a few months ago they did ring me from the Exeter local office and asked if I required any further funding, saying they could improve the interest rate as my credit score was quite good. Initially I said no, but decided a couple of months later to take a further £2000. I went over to the Exeter office feeling quite confident, and was left sitting on my own in an office for half an hour after which the young lady came back and told me I had been declined as I did not have enough funds remaining to make the payments after other commitments - even though the new repayments were to be about the same as my current payments and my financial situation had improved since my original loan was granted. They did not ask me about my income and expenditure on other commitments so I was not clear how they could say this. I explained this to the lady and she said that it was because I had applied for my original loan through the Head Office Callcentre "who fiddle with the figures to sign people up, but we are not allowed to do that".
The loan was not vital, so I shrugged my shoulders and walked away, but was annoyed that I had made a 70 mile round trip and wasted almost an hour in their office on a wild goose chase especially as I had been told several times "if you maintain your payments extra funds are always available".
I think under the FSA's Treating Customers Fairly criteria this is not really providing the customer with accurate information. However, being now within sight of paying off the loan I am now quite pleased that I did not enter into another agreement with this company.
The positive thing about WF is that everyone I have dealt with has been very pleasant and polite, which is certainly something in their favour
I throughly enjoyed my time at Welcome and did my upmost to help any customer that was experiencing financial difficulties.
I feel for the employees as they have to put up with customers talking to them like something they are wiping off their shoe if they can't pay or if their car goes wrong.
I had a leaking roof but I didn't stop paying my mtg!
The jobs is good but the stress and pressure you are put under to exceed blueprint targets is too much and encourages staff to ensure customers take ppi/warranty's, emergency home care insurance etc.
Thankfully I no longer work in this industry
(sub prime sales/debt collecting)
the company is a massive sausage machine that burns you out then doesn't give a toss what you do.
If your an employee and are enjoying it then you need to go help an underperforming branch and understand what real commitment is.
For those customer who were pressurised into taking insurance they didn't want you need to complain. You may have a poor credit score but you are still entitled to be given the choice!
GOOD LUCK
beeninthegame2long at 4th Jan 2009, 07:14PM
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