the High Cost Short Term Credit market. Historically we saw evidence of firms
using their CPA access to clear funds from their borrowers outside of agreed
payment cycles. For example, one borrower during our depth interviews
explained how a firm did this in 2012 with significant impact.
A 45 year old woman had taken out a payday loan for £100 but had to
extend and rollover multiple times. Then the company took all of the
money from her bank account, about £650. This meant she had no money
for transport to and from work or for collecting her child from school that
week. She didn’t want to ask for help from colleagues due to the shame.
As a result, she was unable to pay her mortgage and other loans, resulting
in significant arrears charges.
Some cases post-regulation show firms clearing funds from borrowers’ accounts.
A woman from the West Midlands had three payday loans at the same
time in 2015 when one firm, which had originally failed to send any loan
paperwork, took the last of her money from her account without any prior
notice and no permission.
The FCA tightened the rules to ensure that firms could only attempt to collect
payment via CPA unsuccessfully twice and re-asserting the borrower’s right to
cancel such agreements. While the evidence suggests that firms are continuing
to use CPAs to collect funds from their borrowers, we have only seen a few
cases where this is being abused. We have however seen a small number of
cases regarding specific firms openly using unsatisfactory methods to collect
repayments. We found example cases where firms were using their access to
borrowers internet banking to put funds into their account, despite the
borrower not requesting additional funds. For example:
A 50 year old woman had taken out a payday loan for £180 in mid 2015 to
cover costs and bills due to her partner being off work for an operation.
Upon application, the firm required her to share her internet banking
details including login, password and memorable characters. From this
point the firm had on multiple occasions accessed the woman's account to
either take funds once the bank balance was above a certain amount or
putting additional funds into the account when the balance dropped
below £50, all without the specific consent or request from the borrower.
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