Be Excellent To Each Other

Fuck me.

As some of you are aware, I'm in the market for a car, and as such I'm also in the market for a car loan for about £3000. One quick visit to moneysavingexpert later and I type in all of my details into an application with 'moneyback loans', some front for Alliance and Leicester.

Now, yesterday I filled in all my details and I noticed the website was pushing payment protection insurance. I clicked 'I don't want this' and carried on with the second part of the form. Then, on the next bit of the form, it's asking me again if I want payment protection insurance. I click 'no, fuck off', again, and finally manage to finish.

A&L text me today saying 'Please call (number) to discuss your loan and payment protection insurance'. Hnnng.

I call, and get through to some woman who starts asking me identical questions to the ones I've already answered online. When I stop her and say 'Hang on, I know this sounds stupid, but you're asking me the exact same questions I filled in online yesterday'. She said they had to for 'confirmation'. What's this about then? What's the point in filling something in online at all if you're just going to have to trawl through it manually on the phone anyway?

Anyway, after asking me some more-intrusive-than-usual questions about how much I earn and exactly what I spend my money on, she starts talking about payment protection insurance. A lot. In fact, the whole tone of the call is geared towards payment protection insurance. She asks what would happen if I was out of work sick for a prolonged period of time.

I tell her, truthfully, that my employer would pay me at full pay for 6 months and half pay for 6 months, which I deem to be pretty ace. I'd need a seriously debilitating condition to be out of work for this long. Since the loan is for 2 years, she immediately points out that, based on my outgoings, I couldn't possibly hope to cover it all if I was sick for more than 6 months and that I should really consider PAYMENT PROTECTION INSURANCE.

Then we move on to the final stage of the application, where she starts telling me how much I have to pay back. She tells me that based on my details, I have 'qualified' for Payment Protection Insurance, and as such my repayments would be £xxx over 24 months.

The conversation then went like this:

Her: 'How does that sound for you?'

Me: 'I'll say this just once, to make it very clear, I do not want payment protection insurance'.

Her: 'But you did tell me earlier that your employer would only pay you at full rate for only six months, and I think you're thinking about your good health in the past and it's clouding how you perceive the future. Nobody knows what might happen tomorrow, you might break your leg, anything could happen. You also told me that you have no life insurance in the event of your death or any other scheme which would cover this loan in the event you could not work'.

Me: 'I do not want Payment Protection Insurance'.

Her: 'I would strongly advise that you accept my recommendation....'

Me: 'Let me just stop you there. Your website asked me twice if I wanted Payment Protection Insurance, and I clicked no twice. Despite that you're now asking me if I want it despite having already told you that I don't. Can we now stop talking about Payment Protection Insurance?'

Her: 'Ok sir, you've mentioned it twice now, so I've got it into my head. Should you change your mind about Payment Protection Insurance.....'.

By this point I was pretty livid, I mean, FUCK THE FUCKING FUCK OFF WITH YOUR FUCKING STUPID INSURANCE SHIT THAT I DONT NEED AND DONT WANT.

After all that the cunts offered me a rate nowhere near the typical API, so now I'm in two minds about whether to buy a car at all. I could just save for a month or two and in the meantime walk a lot. Cunts.

There was a thing on moneyBox on Radio Old over the weekend about PPI and how it was viewed by THOSE THAT MAKE THE RULES as a rip off and too expensive.

I had the same problem. I went to see a financial adviser because I needed to get my life insurance sorted out, and he not only managed to reduce my life insurance premium by half, but he advised that instead of having Payment Protection Insurance on credit cards/car loans etc. you take out income protection insurance which basically serves the same purpose but acts as a catch-all for the lot.

He got me income protection insurance that will pay me £1,000 a month indefinitely should I need it, for £25 a month. Bear in mind that with my two credit cards and the personal loan I took out to buy my car, I was paying about £120 a month in PPI.

Oh, and rather than taking out a car loan, get a personal loan that can be used for any purpose and then buy the car with the money from that. If you specifically get a car loan, the car will remain the property of the lender until you pay it all off. Not so with a personal loan, although of course if you default on the payments they may repossess the car (or something else) to recover the loan money.

That's not cut and dried though. As the car loans have a fixed collatoral item that can fairly easily be reclaimed in the event of default, they can sometimes have better rates out of the lenders. Two years ago, with credit abundant, this wasn't such an issue but now personal credit has dried up a bit I'd suggest it worth at least evaluating car loans against personal loans.

Should have clarified, sorry, it *is* an any purpose loan, but they asked what I wanted it for, so I said a car. I assume this is not the same as a car loan itself

Just as an example here, when I was looking at car loans and personal loans in early April, I was quoted an interest rate of 7.9% on a personal loan, or THIRTY-THREE POINT SIX PERCENT on a car loan.

I had to put up with this exact same bullshit when I got an Alliance & Leicester loan over a year ago. The phone call took about an hour as I recall, at which point I agreed to Payment Protection just to shut the woman up.

When the actual contract arrived for me to sign however, I phoned them back to tell them that I had changed my mind about the payment protection after all. The bloke on the other end just told me to sign the contract for the loan, but leave the PPI one blank. Sure enough, I've now got a loan with them with no payment protection on it.

So in future - just say yes on the phone, and no when you get the contract.

In a way though, I wish I'd said no to the whole bloody loan, since just as CG found the interest rate they advertised and the rate they were prepared to offer me were two different things. The cheeky bitch on the phone even suggested that the only reason I got the interest rate as low as I did was because of my apparent (at that time) willingness to have payment protection on it.

So if you want a personal loan to buy a car, what do you tell them when they ask what the loan is for?

Coke and hookers.

Home improvements.

The boxset?

I wonder... will my super student debt make it impossible for me to ever get a loan? (Or, more pressingly, a mortgage?)

Not in the least, unless you default on repaying your super student debt^TM.

Hahah

And if I do...?

They did this when I bought my car, except I told them I would just pay the remainder off. That shut them up.

Then it'll negatively impact your credit rating in the same way as defaulting on a credit card or other personal loan.

All the PPI vendors are shitting themselves at the moment as it's being investigated by a government group. I know this because one of my friends is in the group, and they went into it not to find out if it's good or bad, but to find out just how bad. They're basically being pressure-sold, mis-sold, and are highly unfair. As CG found out. The whole practise is soon to be found entirely disgraceful and kicked in the face.

Not just vendors being told to stop being cunts about it, it's possible people will be able to demand complete refunds on top of being able to terminate contracts without prejudice. It's that bad - worse than most people, including cynical old curmudgeonly me, imagine.

Of course, what the Government/regulator does with the report could result in something entirely less just.

As I said, the woman from A&L that I had to speak to suggested to me that my APR would have to be higher if I refused PPI. That can't be right, surely?

Probably not. The APR should be calculated based on the risk you pose now, not on hypothetical futures.

Edit: That sort of tie-in is part of the investigation, I think. The conversation was weeks ago and I was drinking, it's all a bit vague.

I'm pretty sure it's illegal.

I remember when getting one of my many, many loans, they were really pressuring the PPI, to the point where I actually enquired if not having it would mean I couldn't get the loan. They eventually mumbled that no, they weren't allowed to do that, so I told 'em to eff off.

Annoyingly, I had a similar plan on my credit cards, and then got made redundant. I didn't realise I had the insurance, and kept on paying both minimum payments and the insurance on to the card for my 9 months of unemployment.

Oops. That cost me about 3-4 grand...

Paperwork for the loan came today, and shockingly, who would have guessed it, there was a shitload of crap in there about PPI, STRONGLY ADVISING me to take it, along with a little booklet of all the unexpected things that could happen to me and all the amazing benefits the fucking thing has.

Cheerfully I've managed to rejig my finances and I think I'll be able to buy the car without taking out the loan, which is nice, as I don't want to deal with these fuckbuckets if I can help it.

No, take the loan but send all the PPI stuff back to them with "DO NOT WANT" scrawled across it in black marker, along with a letter asking them to recycle it for you and please stop destroying the environment.

And then cancel the loan just inside the cooling-off period anyway.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7657446.stm



HahahahahahahhaahahahahAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHHAAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAH.


Cunts.

they could have bought and insured five Bugatti Veyron's for you with that fine - and that's excluding the metric fuckton of money they're going to have to pay back.

I hope it damages them immensely, the bastards. What a cheerful bit of news

In the current environment, any bank isn't really going to give a shit about £7million.

I'd much rather save and pay than take out a loan, which is the more expensive option in the long run.

Fucking fantastic, the cunts! Marvelous news, this has cheered me up immensely after having just been bum-raped by Honda over the cost of servicing my car today.

You know you're allowed to pay with actual money instead, right?

In these credit restricted times, you have to save money wherever possible.

I'm proper worried I won't be able to get a Professional Studies Loan now. HSBC were supposed to call me about it a couple of weeks ago, but I think I might've given them my mobile number incorrectly. Erk. I should probably call in instead of posting about it here, eh readers?

No, I'm sure someone from HSBC will read this thread eventually.

It's bound to happen at some point, innit? PM me when you read it, HSBC-loan-granting-guy (or girl).

They've got fuck all else to do at the moment.

Indeed, though I'm concerned about how I'm meant to drive the car back home again being as I can barely sit down now.

HSBC have the floor below my office.

No I'm not popping down to ask them.

I did try to call the number on the HSBC website that says "Call now to apply", only to be told I couldn't apply over the phone. Erm?

No wonder all the banks are fucking going under.

Sheepy - just call the 08457 404404 number and get a person.

Surely you'd get fuck all from that number.

Cheers Mr C! Will call in a bit.

You get the customer service people, and they'll put you through to someone.

It was a nerd joke.

Can you explain it, cras? don't unnerstand.

404 - FILE NOT FOUND

You know, that twigged just as I loaded this page.

I'm going to confuse you all with lawyer in-jokes.

No... wait...

ERROR. FILE NOT FOUND.

Need a loan?

Try Payday!

Typical APR is 1845% - No hassle. No fuss.

Yes, it is real.

Err, wow!

It's a false interest rate though. Because they have to charge you an amount to make it worth extending the loan and they expect it back in 2 weeks.

So really , being charged £20 to have £100 till pay day is not unreasonable at all, but it makes for a frightening APR.

But is not a frightening APR a, perhaps the definition of an unreasonable loan?