Hello members, i'm not sure if i'm asking for help or just venting my anger over events of receont months. I work for NHS and my wife has her own business. All of NHS has been indergoing a pay review called Agenda for change and i have been in a cohort of staff that they didnt know what tod do with. Consequently I havent had any pay increase since october 2004. Is that actually legal??
Secondly, my wife has a business in retail and her quarterly sales slumped from 28k to 18k and as you will imagine our income consequently slumped. In July we could see that things werent good so we contacted ocean finance to see if we could get a secured load. We had a perfect credit score that i keep an eye on through my experion account. Well. firstly oceam made a mistake verifying my wifes income from her business accounts and declined our application. I had to get tax returns to prove her income but by that time we had been posted into the declined box and they wouldnt acknowledge that a mistake had been made. The then passed us on to bright finance who pushed our application through three further lenders each one declined. The reason eventually came out that there wasnt enough equity in the house to cover the secured loan. It seems that lenders had begun to value property at 2006 prices so we were stuffed in so far as getting a secured loan was concerned. What is annoying is that they should never have done any credit scores if that was going to be a problem. The second complaint i have is that a MBNA credit card i have has crept from 20% to 34.9% in two years. I pay this weekly and always pay the due amount. However because i pay weekly, i dont always hit the 'payment due date' so i get an overlimit charge and a late payment fee. So despite overpaying the minimum amount due every month, I still have been hit with over 100 in these charges since July. I range them up and complained but got nowhere. Isn't it about time the government got a handle on these interest rates and the extortion of charges owing to the due date not being met!!!
My experion credit score is now 400 and it was 950 in july. All accounts are up to date. What a disaster!
regards
David
Your sympathy would be welcomed.
Hello members, i'm not sure if i'm asking for help or just venting my anger over events of receont months. I work for NHS and my wife has her own business. All of NHS has been indergoing a pay review called Agenda for change and i have been in a cohort of staff that they didnt know what tod do with. Consequently I havent had any pay increase since october 2004. Is that actually legal??
Secondly, my wife has a business in retail and her quarterly sales slumped from 28k to 18k and as you will imagine our income consequently slumped. In July we could see that things werent good so we contacted ocean finance to see if we could get a secured load. We had a perfect credit score that i keep an eye on through my experion account. Well. firstly oceam made a mistake verifying my wifes income from her business accounts and declined our application. I had to get tax returns to prove her income but by that time we had been posted into the declined box and they wouldnt acknowledge that a mistake had been made. The then passed us on to bright finance who pushed our application through three further lenders each one declined. The reason eventually came out that there wasnt enough equity in the house to cover the secured loan. It seems that lenders had begun to value property at 2006 prices so we were stuffed in so far as getting a secured loan was concerned. What is annoying is that they should never have done any credit scores if that was going to be a problem. The second complaint i have is that a MBNA credit card i have has crept from 20% to 34.9% in two years. I pay this weekly and always pay the due amount. However because i pay weekly, i dont always hit the 'payment due date' so i get an overlimit charge and a late payment fee. So despite overpaying the minimum amount due every month, I still have been hit with over 100 in these charges since July. I range them up and complained but got nowhere. Isn't it about time the government got a handle on these interest rates and the extortion of charges owing to the due date not being met!!!
My experion credit score is now 400 and it was 950 in july. All accounts are up to date. What a disaster!
regards
David
Your sympathy would be welcomed.
Why would you get sympathy?
1) Yes its legal, you have no obligation to a payrise, unless contractual, what you neglect to mention is that most of those in the NHS whose payrise was frozen where clerical staff and already being overpaid compared to other roles and industries thus the freeze until it comes in line.
2) As has the whole of industry, its part of doing business, and its awful management that your wife hadnt put in place practices to protect against this.
3) You have no right to credit, if a lender doesnt want to lend to you tough, and it is upto them how they choose to lend too.
4) House prices are crashing and houses are not selling because of the credit crunch, its no wonder they had concerns about the equity issue.
5) The profitability of credit cards has fallen and bad debts risen thus the increase rate rises.
6) you signed a contract to make a monthly payment by a due date, its not their fault you ignore the contract and do what you want to do.
Overall you sound like another one of those arses in society who lives beyond their means, and ignores their legal obligations then expects to be bailed up.
Grow up, live within your means and meet your obligations and you wont have any problems.
As a former NHS employee I have sympathy for you, as 4 years without a pay rise seems unbelievable!! I don't know what area you are involved in, but the NHS is so over run with managers, pen pushers and Labours incessant need to waste money on papers, documents and policies, that bogger all is left to pay the staff actually having to work on the floor. Look at your contract to see if this is acceptable, and talk to your union if a member, for guidance as to what you should have been receiving.
I also have sympathy for you not getting a loan. But no one is obliged to lend you money, as hard as that may seem, you have to stop thinking that this is unreasonable, especially if your record of paying back is not good.
As to your MBNA credit card, I don't understand why you are complaining if not paying it at the correct time?!! :confused: You state you don't deliver by the "payment due date".....so why are you complaining about then being charged interest etc?!!
...and clearly you must be the sanctimonius type that religiously measures out only just the right amount of cornflakes every day to make sure you do get the 18 servings the packet describes. I've never heard such self satisfied garbage in my life and didn't expect to hear it here of all places.
"Quote ...what you neglect to mention is that most of those in the NHS whose payrise was frozen where clerical staff and already being overpaid compared to other roles and industries thus the freeze until it comes in line..." - absolute fairyland - where do you get your information from?.
I won't tell you what my job is but it's only one of four in the uk it's not clerical. I'm not saying that the process of breaking the NHS into trusts didn't bloat the clerical side but if you want to turn a large machine into hundres of smaller machines, you get duplication and waste. This wasn't my politics and for your information EVERYONE in NHS had their pay frozen pending review. Many are now being paid a great deal more than they were to begin with which rather kills your projection of millions of clerical fat cats skimming cash from the 'poor' health service. You probably think that the only people working in it should be Doctors and Nurses.
I understand that bad debt is causing credit card profits to fall but why should i pay for those who dont pay? I don't live beyond my means - did i say I did?
You completely mised the point. Of course they had concerns about the equity issue. The point is that they should have fired that up BEFORE doing a million credit checks - it was unprofessional.
And as for calling me an !!!!. You know nothing about me and choose to attack me. You should be working for Ocean Finance.
regards
David
As a former NHS employee I have sympathy for you, as 4 years without a pay rise seems unbelievable!! I don't know what area you are involved in, but the NHS is so over run with managers, pen pushers and Labours incessant need to waste money on papers, documents and policies, that bogger all is left to pay the staff actually having to work on the floor. Look at your contract to see if this is acceptable, and talk to your union if a member, for guidance as to what you should have been receiving.
I also have sympathy for you not getting a loan. But no one is obliged to lend you money, as hard as that may seem, you have to stop thinking that this is unreasonable, especially if your record of paying back is not good.
As to your MBNA credit card, I don't understand why you are complaining if not paying it at the correct time?!! :confused: You state you don't deliver by the "payment due date".....so why are you complaining about then being charged interest etc?!!
Geenie - thanks for that more reasoned answer. My record on equifax is 100% satisfactory, no problems with payments there. The problem was the equity and I thought they should have looked at that first rather than sending us the final papers then declining on the basis of equity because ofa change in policy. It was a waste of time. You are right about pen pushers but that was the governments fault, you cannot blame the individuals for wanting to work and being offered employment. The public perception about the NHS will always be that it should only be populated by nurses and doctors as it was in the good old days, (when infant mortality was high and people died when they reached 45).
As for the credit card, i overpay the credit card every month so say they asked for 200 - I gave them 300 its because the payments were weekly they were missing the deadline. It was also the interest rate creeping up that niggled me as my payment record is very good.
thanks for the reply.
regards
David
I don't live beyond my means - did i say I did?
Your need for this loan suggests living beyond your means. Your income dropped and your response was to try and borrow additional money rather than reduce spending.
If Ocean Finance sent your application on to other finance companies without you asking them to, then I have sympathy for the detrimental affect this has had on your credit rating. However, this detrimental affect is of a short duration, typically six months.
A bigger problem with the credit rating is your failure to pay the minimum amount on your credit card, resulting in multiple late payments that will show on your credit file for the next six years. I am at a loss as to what you are complaining about here - you failed to pay the minimum amount on time. And clearly you've done it multiple times now - this is even more confusing. Why didn't you change the way you make payments after the first time this happened?
If your problem on the card is that you're paying weekly, why not make weekly payments in to a savings account and then use the money in there to pay the credit card once a month? That way you'll fall within their T&Cs, so no late fees.
Your need for this loan suggests living beyond your means. Your income dropped and your response was to try and borrow additional money rather than reduce spending.
If Ocean Finance sent your application on to other finance companies without you asking them to, then I have sympathy for the detrimental affect this has had on your credit rating. However, this detrimental affect is of a short duration, typically six months.
A bigger problem with the credit rating is your failure to pay the minimum amount on your credit card, resulting in multiple late payments that will show on your credit file for the next six years. I am at a loss as to what you are complaining about here - you failed to pay the minimum amount on time. And clearly you've done it multiple times now - this is even more confusing. Why didn't you change the way you make payments after the first time this happened?
Thanks MR H, although you also seem to be missing the point a little. What happened was that my wifes business suffered in the economic downturn and suddenly there was less money coming in. That isn't "not living within your means", that is being affected by a sudden change in circumstances. We tried to get the secured loan, (And i think it would have been simpler going unsecured) to reduce our monthly outlays and the loan was to be secured on property that previously had equity - OUR EQUITY ie our money!
We are lucky, what about all of the poor devils who are relying soley on self employment or are being made redundant. It was a short term thing we were doing. After all I am waiting for 4 years arrears of pay as a lump sum and a substantial pay rise. At the time it was difficult and it seemed prudent to do what we did rather than run any risk of missing payments. Luckily we have been all right. Regarding the credit card, the weekly payments were meeting the monthly due amount fine until MBNA ramped the rate from 20-34%. I changed the payments but it !!!!es me off that they did that in the first place.
regards
David
Geenie - thanks for that more reasoned answer. My record on equifax is 100% satisfactory, no problems with payments there. The problem was the equity and I thought they should have looked at that first rather than sending us the final papers then declining on the basis of equity because ofa change in policy. It was a waste of time. You are right about pen pushers but that was the governments fault, you cannot blame the individuals for wanting to work and being offered employment. The public perception about the NHS will always be that it should only be populated by nurses and doctors as it was in the good old days, (when infant mortality was high and people died when they reached 45).
As for the credit card, i overpay the credit card every month so say they asked for 200 - I gave them 300 its because the payments were weekly they were missing the deadline. It was also the interest rate creeping up that niggled me as my payment record is very good.
thanks for the reply.
regards
David
About the MBNA rates. Apparently the 34% rate is reserved for people who they regard as more risky. Even though you have been paying sufficient each month, you have been racking up charges due to the timing of those payments. Therefore, their system will show you as a bad risk on paper even if that isn't the case in reality. Are you in a position to let them do a monthly DD? At least that would be your insurance against late payment fees. In time, that MAY let them view you as less risky.
You say your payment record is very good. Unfortunately, their records won't share that view due to the late payment fees. Looks like you need to do some repair work.
I do have some sympathy as I know from experience how easy it can be to get into such a situation when circumstances change. However, I feel that you need to focus more on how to repair the damage rather than focus on how you've been treated. As someone else said - no-one HAS to lend you (or anyone else) any money if they choose not to.
The main bit I sympathis about is the unnecessary credit checks that could result in making your loan application a problem.
Geenie - thanks for that more reasoned answer. My record on equifax is 100% satisfactory, no problems with payments there. The problem was the equity and I thought they should have looked at that first rather than sending us the final papers then declining on the basis of equity because ofa change in policy. It was a waste of time. You are right about pen pushers but that was the governments fault, you cannot blame the individuals for wanting to work and being offered employment. The public perception about the NHS will always be that it should only be populated by nurses and doctors as it was in the good old days, (when infant mortality was high and people died when they reached 45).
As for the credit card, i overpay the credit card every month so say they asked for 200 - I gave them 300 its because the payments were weekly they were missing the deadline. It was also the interest rate creeping up that niggled me as my payment record is very good.
thanks for the reply.
regards
David
David, thank you for your nice reply. There is a lot of anger around at the moment, but please don't let it stop you asking for help on here, as most are very kind and helpful. What people are trying to say sometimes, though not in a way that appears tactful or friendly when stated in this medium, is that we have to look at our actions when problems occur.
Set up your MBNA payments, so that they occur at the right time to not incur any penalties......a Direct Debit. It is a fact that if you borrow money from a bank, interest will have to be paid if you don't repay the full amount straight away.
As to the NHS and people dying at 45!!!! What era are you talking about here as sounds like something from a Dickens novel!! I started my training 1978 and was an SRN when I passed 3 years later. I can say with hand on my heart, I would rather have been a patient in that time and the 80's, then what I have seen in recent times in my top of the league hospital! Hospitals need doctors, and nurses who nurse not paper chase. ;)
Thanks MR H, although you also seem to be missing the point a little. What happened was that my wifes business suffered in the economic downturn and suddenly there was less money coming in. That isn't "not living within your means", that is being affected by a sudden change in circumstances. We tried to get the secured loan, (And i think it would have been simpler going unsecured) to reduce our monthly outlays and the loan was to be secured on property that previously had equity - OUR EQUITY ie our money!
We are lucky, what about all of the poor devils who are relying soley on self employment or are being made redundant. It was a short term thing we were doing. After all I am waiting for 4 years arrears of pay as a lump sum and a substantial pay rise. At the time it was difficult and it seemed prudent to do what we did rather than run any risk of missing payments. Luckily we have been all right. Regarding the credit card, the weekly payments were meeting the monthly due amount fine until MBNA ramped the rate from 20-34%. I changed the payments but it !!!!es me off that they did that in the first place.
regards
David
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrggggghhh !!
You said the "p" word (prudent). :D
Look where "prudence" has got us all.
...and clearly you must be the sanctimonius type that religiously measures out only just the right amount of cornflakes every day to make sure you do get the 18 servings the packet describes. I've never heard such self satisfied garbage in my life and didn't expect to hear it here of all places.
"Quote ...what you neglect to mention is that most of those in the NHS whose payrise was frozen where clerical staff and already being overpaid compared to other roles and industries thus the freeze until it comes in line..." - absolute fairyland - where do you get your information from?.
I won't tell you what my job is but it's only one of four in the uk it's not clerical. I'm not saying that the process of breaking the NHS into trusts didn't bloat the clerical side but if you want to turn a large machine into hundres of smaller machines, you get duplication and waste. This wasn't my politics and for your information EVERYONE in NHS had their pay frozen pending review. Many are now being paid a great deal more than they were to begin with which rather kills your projection of millions of clerical fat cats skimming cash from the 'poor' health service. You probably think that the only people working in it should be Doctors and Nurses.
I understand that bad debt is causing credit card profits to fall but why should i pay for those who dont pay? I don't live beyond my means - did i say I did?
You completely mised the point. Of course they had concerns about the equity issue. The point is that they should have fired that up BEFORE doing a million credit checks - it was unprofessional.
And as for calling me an !!!!. You know nothing about me and choose to attack me. You should be working for Ocean Finance.
regards
David
You are one sad bitter man.
You have no justifiable moans, and its all your own fault.
As for being one of four in the UK , so what, you could be a cleaning manager, and be one of four because they are getting rid of the rest because its a pointless job.
Thanks MR H, although you also seem to be missing the point a little. What happened was that my wifes business suffered in the economic downturn and suddenly there was less money coming in. That isn't "not living within your means", that is being affected by a sudden change in circumstances.
Don't get me wrong. I have sympathy with you that your circumstances changed suddenly. That really would suck and I hope it doesn't happen to me. But the fact of the matter is, your income (your means) has reduced and your need to take out a loan does imply living beyond your means. You didn't say in your original post whether or not you've made meaningful efforts to reduce your outgoings.
You say that this loan should be a short-term thing, but can you be sure? Will your wife's business improve? How do you know? Will you get your payrise? Certainly, you shouldn't rely on a payrise coming if your contract doesn't explicitly say you're going to get one.
All I'm saying is, it may be painful but maybe you'll have to look at drastically reducing your spending? Or perhaps not as you say now you are "alright".
Regarding the credit card, the weekly payments were meeting the monthly due amount fine until MBNA ramped the rate from 20-34%. I changed the payments but it !!!!es me off that they did that in the first place.
Did they send you a letter or otherwise inform you that the interest rate was increasing? If not then you have a legitimate complaint and should formerly do so, going all the way to the financial ombudsman if necessary.
However, in your original post you state that you've had in excess of £100 of charges, since July. Both the amount and the timeframe imply multiple late payments and you can only blame yourself for not realising earlier.
Finally, having a balance on a credit card that you can't pay off in full and that isn't stoozing suggests that perhaps you were living beyond your means before these recent troubles. Why are you only paying the minimum amount on a credit card with an interest rate so high (it was high even before the recent increase)?
However, in your original post you state that you've had in excess of 100 of charges, since July. Both the amount and the timeframe imply multiple late payments At 12 each, it would require 9+ charges to exceed 100...and July was only 5-6 months ago.
The speed with which "over 100" has been racked up would indicate there are some 'over limit' charges as well, which may go some way to explaining the leap to 34.9% APR.
You are one sad bitter man.
You have no justifiable moans, and its all your own fault.
As for being one of four in the UK , so what, you could be a cleaning manager, and be one of four because they are getting rid of the rest because its a pointless job.
What a tosser. You sound like the Daily Mirror.
Do you guys here always ignore the points being made and concentrate on how many points you can try to score?
The interest rates rose before july, and were not caused by underpayment.
Ocean finance's procedures dont work in favour of protecting a persons credit score.
LinasPilibaitisisbatman (http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/member.html?u=469841) is an ignoramus.
regards, finally
david
Martin, you should audit your channels.
I'll throw in my 2 cents......
dtr1001, I can see why you'd be a bit miffed at not getting a payrise and getting charged a higher interest rate, but I really can't see anything wrong with what anyone's done there? As recession really hits next year, there will be a lot of pay freezes and even salary reductions. There's no law that I know of that says your salary always needs to go up? And it'll get much worse if inflation does actually turn into deflation!
The flavour of your posts does suggest you have a mentality of spending future earnings and I think it's a dangerous thing to assume you'll be getting any payrise, let alone a backdated one. But, that's just the flavour of your posts and I appreciate may not be accurate.
Anyway, one of the best pieces of advice I ever got was when I was a few years younger and getting annoyed and heated with a particular institution. A mentor of mine simply shrugged his shoulders and said "just play the game". Those simple words changed my outlook on life, for the better. So my advice to you would be the same, know the rules and play the game.
Firstly, you pay off the credit card weekly and say that you overpay, but by their rules, you don't. They say pay the minimum of x by such a date in the month, so why don't you set up a direct debit to take that amount? Then, anything additional is a bonus. If not, at the very least work out each month how much you need to put in each week and, very important, make sure you hit the minimum by the date specified! It's your responsibility to do this and if you don't start doing it, then you can have no complaints if they actually increased your interest again.
Secondly, I'd suggest moving your credit card balance to a 0% card, but it sounds like the credit scoring's taken a hit so this may not be a viable option? So, I think it's got to be good old fashioned budgeting. Analyse all of your outgoings and see what you can go without. Mobile phone contracts, gym memberships, take aways, nights out etc. Aggressively pay off that debt and scrutinise every penny that goes out every week. Prepare for the worst i.e. what if your wife's retail sales go down further? Or what if the business goes completely under? If you don't, the risk is that you'll be paying off the minimum on that 34.9% credit card for a very long time!! Or worse.
Lastly, get yourself over to the Debt Free Wannabee board and check some of the posts on there to see how other people are managing their debt. There's loads of good stuff on there from large to small.
Hope that helps
What a tosser. You sound like the Daily Mirror.
If you're looking for sympathy still, you're definitely going the wrong way about it.
With regard to MBNA I would have suggested you call them and ask nicely to have the rate reduced, many others have on this website and been sucessful
, however because of your payment record I doubt you will be successful.
The other loan issues are entirely your fault. Your payment record is awful. You are therefore a bad risk.
With regard to your pay I am pleased your pay has been frozen because I want to pay less tax. Unless you are a nurse you are probably overpaid anyway. If you are unhappy with your pay I suggest you look elsewhere.
Do you guys here always ignore the points being made?
It would appear that it's you ignoring the points being made.
Taking all your posts together, they smack of someone burying their head in the sand. You need to face the facts: you've got a significant credit-card debt at a very high interest rate, your credit rating is shot to pieces and your income has fallen dramatically. You need to wake up now and cut your spending. There is plenty of help available here but only if you first admit to yourself that you need to make changes.
Having said all that, maybe there's more information you've not provided that mitigates all this. But from your posts so far, the paragraph above is how I see it.
Consequently I havent had any pay increase since october 2004. Is that actually legal?? Perfectly.
You may, however, want to have a word with your union, or start looking elsewhere for a job.
Secondly, my wife has a business in retail and her quarterly sales slumped from 28k to 18k and as you will imagine our income consequently slumped. No 'rainy day' money saved up from the 'good times'? No 'emergency fund?'
In July we could see that things werent good so we contacted ocean finance to see if we could get a secured load. We had a perfect credit score that i keep an eye on through my experion account. With all due respect, with a 'perfect' credit score, Ocean Finance should be one of the last places you should be going to for a loan.
Well. firstly oceam made a mistake verifying my wifes income from her business accounts and declined our application. I had to get tax returns to prove her income but by that time we had been posted into the declined box and they wouldnt acknowledge that a mistake had been made. The then passed us on to bright finance who pushed our application through three further lenders each one declined. The reason eventually came out that there wasnt enough equity in the house to cover the secured loan.
1) Go through Ocean's complaint procedure, if you think you'll get anywhere.
2) Did you actually (verbally or written) agree to the checks by Bright+3?
It seems that lenders had begun to value property at 2006 prices so we were stuffed in so far as getting a secured loan was concerned. Given the fact that house prices are in decline at the moment, you'd be stuffed if they were using 'today's' prices anyway.
What is annoying is that they should never have done any credit scores if that was going to be a problem. Equity was a problem/looked at, because you were looking for a secured loan. Had you been after an unsecured loan, equity wouldn't have figured.
The second complaint i have is that a MBNA credit card i have has crept from 20% to 34.9% in two years. You are not alone in this. All the card companies have been raising their rates, quite a few recently.
I pay this weekly and always pay the due amount. However because i pay weekly, i dont always hit the 'payment due date' so i get an overlimit charge and a late payment fee. You should put the money aside weekly and make one payment before the due date. Ideally you should have a DD set up.
So despite overpaying the minimum amount due every month,.. but you just admitted you don't: 'i dont always hit the 'payment due date' so i get an overlimit charge and a late payment fee.'
I still have been hit with over 100 in these charges since July. I range them up and complained but got nowhere. Isn't it about time the government got a handle on these interest rates and the extortion of charges owing to the due date not being met!!! Once you get into the position that you can pay, without fail, the minimum amount, by the date set, and not go over your limit, then you can probably ask this, but (sadly) not before.
My experion credit score is now 400 and it was 950 in july. All accounts are up to date. What a disaster! Your 'experian credit score' is only an indication/guideline, and is not to be confused with whatever internal credit score some other institution may come up with for your circumstances on that particular credit report.
In addition, not all institutions use experian, there's equifax as well (and call-credit, but I don't personally bother with them.)
With regard to MBNA I would have suggested you call them and ask nicely to have the rate reduced, many others have on this website and been sucessful
, however because of your payment record I doubt you will be successful.
The other loan issues are entirely your fault. Your payment record is awful. You are therefore a bad risk.
With regard to your pay I am pleased your pay has been frozen because I want to pay less tax. Unless you are a nurse you are probably overpaid anyway. If you are unhappy with your pay I suggest you look elsewhere.
This reply is absolutely SPOT ON!!
Though - from the way the OP writes his posts, do you seriously think that he will have any success on the phone to MBNA? With this attitude?
The problem of the OP is, that he thinks he is right and world owes him something. If someone elses opinion is different, it will always cause an overheated argument like this.
I have been in a job that didn't give me payrise for 4 years too - and it was only my fault I stayed for 4 years - if you don't like it, GO AND FIND A NEW ONE! There is no law to give you a payrise. Even if everyone else is getting one (would that be the case). Payrise is usually about DESERVING ONE. And if you believe you deserve one, you have to do something about it.
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