Can your house really be at risk if you get into difficulties repaying something like a credit card bill? You might think the answer is "no", but there are some very rare situations where this can happen. It helps to know the facts, so you can make good decisions about how to deal with your debts. To be able to sell your house a creditor has to: start by getting a County Court Judgment … [Read more...]
Guarantor loans – open to financial abuse #IWD2019
Guarantor loans are wide open to financial abuse, where the guarantor is pressured into agreeing to the loan, often without full knowledge of the borrower's situation. This can take many forms, but today, for International Women's Day 2019, here are some recent comments from women who were bullied into agreeing to be the guarantor for their partner or their ex-partner. I was bullied … [Read more...]
Amigo loans – not a good way to try to improve your credit score
Have you heard that a guarantor loan is a good way to improve a bad credit score? That isn't good advice. There are big problems with guarantor loans and there are much better ways to improve a bad credit rating! If you already have a guarantor loan, or you are the guarantor for someone else's loan, see the bottom of this article where I look at what your options are. Many people want to … [Read more...]
Amigo – being careless with people’s data
Amigo is not taking proper care of its borrowers' personal information. Readers are reporting that their details are being sent to the wrong address, or have been so poorly packaged that they are arriving ripped open with some of the contents missing. Now once could be an accident, but I have five reports in five weeks. I am not seeing similar comments about other lenders. What information are … [Read more...]
News snippets about high cost credit
This page brings together news items about various types of high-cost lending in Britain, including payday loans, guarantor loans, doorstep lending, logbook loans, rent to own and other forms of high-cost credit. In March 2019, the FCA sent a letter to all high cost credit lenders except overdrafts and credit cards outlining its strategy for supervision for 2019 and 2020 - my comments … [Read more...]
How to complain if you have got a guarantor loan
If you have been given a personal loan by a guarantor lender you can ask for interest to be removed from this loan if: you can't afford the repayments without hardship or borrowing more money, AND Amigo or any other lender would have realised this before they gave you the loan if they had checked properly. If you are the guarantor for someone else's loan, read Complaining if you are a … [Read more...]
How to complain if you are a guarantor for a loan
If you are a guarantor for a loan that you can't afford to pay without hardship, you can ask to be removed as the guarantor. A lender such as Amigo should check that a loan will be affordable for both the borrower and the guarantor before the loan starts and before any top-ups. But often proper checks have not been made. The regulator's definition of affordable is that you have to be able to … [Read more...]
Bad credit loans to avoid
Logbook loans, guarantor loans, "pay weekly" shops such as BrightHouse - these may sound attractive if you are short on cash but have a poor credit rating or have been refused a payday loan. But this sort of debt can end in disaster if you have money problems. This article looks at bad credit loans and what alternatives might work better for you. From February 2017 I have been keeping a summary … [Read more...]