Yes Loans
Cwmbran based Yes Loans is the Welsh company with the highest proportion of complaints upheld against it, according to a recent report by the Financial Ombudsman Service.
The FOS is the official independent expert in settling complaints between consumers and businesses providing financial services.
The Ombudsman found in favour of the consumer in 77% of the cases it decided in the last six months of 2010.
Often people turn to Yes Loans when they've had problems getting credit elsewhere. But not everyone understands Yes Loans isn't the loan provider - it is a credit broker. For a fee of £69.50, they find companies willing to offer loans.
Screen grab of the Yes Loans website
The Â鶹Éç's had over a thousand complaints about them over the years. Customers have been unhappy they haven't been offered a loan, or the interest rate was higher than expected, and many have struggled to get their fees back.
Yes Loans has always insisted these are rare cases and not typical of their usual customer service. They point out that in the period the Ombudsman is reporting on, they processed 300,000 loan applications. So, they say, less than 1 in 4,000 of those applicants complained to the Ombudsman.
The Citizen's Advice Bureau has provided support for people trying to reclaim their money, and Jan Channing from their Caerphilly County branch spoke to Rhodri and Lucy about the people who come for advice. She thinks the complaints are often from vulnerable people who don’t really understand what they’re agreeing to when they contact Yes Loans.
Jan says: “They don't read the terms and conditions, they're told things on the phone, and then when they don't get the loan or they get a loan at a higher rate than they anticipated, they feel misled.
“It's down to I think the fact that people need to realise what they're getting in to. If they did that they might think twice about whether or not they go ahead with the application.â€
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