Citifinancial BEWARE

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notaknowital

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I am just writng to advise anyone considering borrowing money with Citifinancial to stay away.My Fiancee borrowed €2800 with them and was fleeced.Not in her right mind with thing that were going on at the time with her she signed for the loan over 48 months paying €1050 for payment protection and was paying €142 a month.This is 37% APR.She will make the total payment of €6832 back to the company.She rang the company over the last few months trying to cancel the payment protection and was told she could not which is illegal,asked for a settlement figure and was told all the computers were turned off,asked for the amount of payments left and was given a longer period than it was.We met the manager and got a copy of the agreement and there was little care on his part.I think she has been ripped off totally but unfortunately I don't know what else to do except to warn those thinking off dealing with this sort of organisation no matter how desperate you are to think very carefully over it and to realise what you are getting into.
 
i keep getting letters from that crowd offering me money. i wouldn't touch them myself.
 
I have received numerous loan offers from them recently. But it does state clearly in the small print that their APR is 30+ percent. To be honest I don't think there is anything your fiancee can do except make sure to read the small print and understand exactly what the repayments are when taking out a loan.
 
Have to agree with you about reading the contract it amazed me when I found out what had been signed into.Although can't blame her with bills building up she thought that this was the best way to go.Boy was she wrong.Will be paying a settlement figure tomorrow and will put it down to a lesson learned.Was offered a job recently in this line of work but turned it down as you can't have a heart if your lending to people with money issues and going to exploit them even more.
 
Yeah, they get a mention in this Indo article. (requires one-time Unison registration)

Not sure about the last part of this article though, where the unfortunate Gwen is quoted

The solution arrived in the form of a newspaper advert. Mrs Kelly contacted mortgage brokers IFG, which has a link up with GE Money. The Kellys were able to consolidate their loans into a new 25-year mortgage, reducing the monthly payments to €609. The interest is high, at 5.87pc, but Mrs Kelly feels a weight has been lifted off her shoulders.

"It is a high interest rate but it has been worth it. We can review it after three years as long as we do not miss a payment. Maybe then I will be able to get a credit card."
Click to expand...
:eek: :eek:
 
never a lender or a borrow be,if you cannot put your hand in your pocket and buy you cannot afford it, house buying would not come into this argument though
 
True enough saying,have never got myself into debt thankfully and hopefully both of us never will in the future.Must say that she went to a money advice centre M.A.B.S. and they were aware of Citifinancial and said they had sent numerous mails askin for an investigation into the running of this company.
 
The Department of Finance are doing a major review of all financial legislation.

Anyone who lends money at an APR in excess of 23% must register as a money lender, anyone that is, except a financial institution.

You should make a submission to the Department of Finance directly or via your TD that this should change.

Brendan
 
I totally disagree with lenders being allowed to squeeze people who can afford it least - but at the other end of the scale lots of wealthy people are getting very cheap credit so the financial institutions have to make up their profits elsewhere.

However, sadly the advice dished out by MABS to negotiate your way out of debt rather than borrow just isn't realistic. I speak as somebody who was once facing a 10k debt with literally no way to pay my arrears of around 3k. I did it alone without refinancing, but do know other people who've faced worse situations who had simply no option but to borrow again. This was quite simply because even with MABS writing letters on their behalf, some of the institutions simple WILL NOT negotiate, especially if somebody has a history of defaults. They will keep demanding a minimum payment (usually managing to conveniently forget that this is somebody with financial problems) that is well above what somebody in dire straits can realistically afford, and continue to pile on charges and excess interest at usurious rates. And this may end up worse than borrowing at a high rate (for me at the time the banks were charging me an effective combined rate of about 29% so if I'd been able to get a loan of 10k at anything lower I'd have been better off). So I wouldn't always advise anybody to totally rule out refinancing. It might be the better option if excess charges are exceedingly heavy and the lender won't budge.
 
If you opt for the interest free option on DID goods make sure you pay in full over the 12 months or HFC bank will charge 29.9% apr for the privilege of paying over 48 months!
 
This was the company I was going to work for.All they want to hear is that you want to make money and don't care how you do it.They are ruthless.Check out some of the blogs on the internet about what goes on.Read that one woman paid her ckeque in full for the twelve months but they said they never got it and began charging her interest.Luckily she knew what to do and wrote another cheque and drove in with it.A few days later she got the old cheque back in the post.


demoivre said:
If you opt for the interest free option on DID goods make sure you pay in full over the 12 months or HFC bank will charge 29.9% apr for the privilege of paying over 48 months!
Click to expand...
 
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