A borrower complains that an agent kept part of her payment

Consumer Credit

Chris came to us when she reportedly gave her lender an overpayment one week. But her payment book only showed the normal repayment amount. 

What happened

Chris had a home credit loan of £750. Her repayments were £20 per week. She said that one week she decided to pay extra, so she gave the agent £100. She noticed a month later that her payment book had only a payment of £20 recorded in it. Chris complained that the agent must have kept the extra £80 she paid.

What we said

We looked at Chris’ repayment history and saw that she’d never made an overpayment in the five months of the agreement running prior to the payment in question. So this overpayment of £80 was out of the ordinary.

We also asked Chris how she’d had the extra £80 at that stage and whether she had anything to support her  being in possession of these funds at the time – for example, a bank statement showing a cash machine withdrawal for this or a higher amount. Chris couldn’t tell us where the extra money had come from and she didn’t have anything to show that she had the funds around the time of the payment.

The lender also confirmed that they had never received any similar complaints about Chris’ agent before.

Weighing up everything, we didn’t think that there was enough to support what Chris had told us. So we didn’t uphold the complaint.