I will stop putting off till tomorrow what i can do today - unless i can't be bothered.......
Plea...
I will stop putting off till tomorrow what i can do today - unless i can't be bothered.......
Please feel free to guide me through the reviewing process - ifeel i ramble too much and don't know where to stop. It just seems to happen.
Member since:08.04.2007
Reviews:17
We delt with this company last year and have had no complaints with them at all.....until now but it's only a small one.
Picture are just like the advert on the tv - very nice, friendly, chatty about everything under the sun.
We chose them because they can offer up to 125% of your house value and their valuation is done online - not by sending someone out to do a drive by valuation and charge you for it like some companies.
I spoke to my account manager a few times by telephone. I found him very helpful, non-judgmental and very friendly. I told him what i had been quoted from other companies and told him what i was looking for and he seemed happy to offer me just that.
To give you a clearer 'picture' (haha) we borrowed £19,000 over 15 years. the repayments were calculated with an APR of 8.9% making our payment £234 per month.
The guy made sure we were in a position to pay the money back which included should anything going wrong.
We told him what we wanted to pay off and he made arrangements to pay the companies direct which saved us a lot of hassle. The remaining money was paid into our bank acount by BACS.
When we agreed how much we wanted to borrow we had to wait for 14days before doing anything else. Some sort of legal thing that the company has to do. they are not allowed to contact yo u in any way at all.
We took out the PPI which i have since realised we are paying interest on. The total for the PPI is £5,000 but it only covers us for the first 5 years of the loan. The one thing that this loan company does that the others doesn't is they pay out if you don't claim!!!
Eg of this is year 3 you get a 25% refund, year 4 you get a 20% refund and year 5 you get a 15% refund. But note - the % i have quoted on the PPI which covers the loan - not the loan itself.
Downside to having this loan are
1 - you cannot over pay. I called to see if we could up our payments to maybe clear it off sooner but i was told that if we did, the minimum amount we could pay would be 3 months payments (almost £800) and you are only allowed to do this a certain amount of times over the term of the loan.
2 - The interest rates are variable. Our payments have gone from £234 to £256 in 9 months with the rates rise. This might affect people who don't have a fixed ratemortgage as your mortgage and loan will rise.
3 - Ther eis a fee which has to be paid if you change your martgage offer. It currently stands at £250. This means that if we keep doing a 2 year fixed rate mortgage then we need to pay £250 every 2 years. this is because they would become the main holders on the property and it saves the land registry having to keep changing it's records (so i'm told)
4 - you can't take a payment break on your mortgage if you have a loan with picture. If you did you would have to pay the same £250 so it kind of defeats the purpose. The is for the reason above again.
Overall i am please with the service i got from Picture. The sold me the product i was looking for and, like any other product, didn't tell me of the down sides.
Our settlement figure on the £19,000 loan as it stands today is £23,398 and we have only paid 9 months so it's not too bad.
I would recommend them as a secured loan company. The interest rates depend on your credit background but vary from 7.8% upwards. Ours is currently at 9.5% but i think the highest i have seen is 13.9%.
They are one of the nicer companies and certainly more understanding. Believe me i have delt with a few. My only advice is ask lots of questions and read the small print.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Advantages: Fun, easy to lend, makes you feel good, can earn better interest than a bank sometimes. Disadvantages: Can lose your money, your money is tied up - I mean it's tied up for years (or forever)
hard_to_please 10.08.2009 ·
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Zopa Loans
Jun 14th, 2007
very helpful by (100%):
