Welcome Financial Services . On my own Families personnel experience, I just cant bring myself to give Welcome Finance a good rating. 8 years ago now, we took out a personnel loan with them, and also financed the purchase of a second hand car through them as well.
My Husband was working full time and well paid, but because we had both gone through previous marriages which had left us both with financial difficulties, as far as a credit rating was concerned Welcome Finance was one of the few options available to us.
We took out Insurance cover encase of any mishaps along the way, including injury and redundancy cover, the Loan was to be paid back over 2 years and the Car over 3. All was going well, until one day about a year later, my Husband, picked up my little girl, to put her on his shoulders, there was a funny cracking sound, and my husband shouted for me to get my Daughter of him quickly, We thought he had just twisted his back awkwardly, and with a couple of days rest, he would be okay, but this was not the case, he tried to struggle on for a couple of days, but could hardly stand up, but he wouldn't give up, eventually I found him on the bathroom floor in agony, enough was enough, I called an Ambulance, he hadn't twisted anything, he had broken his back.
When we finally got sorted, we contacted Welcome Finance about our dilemma, although they sounded sympathetic, we were horrified to learn, we were not covered for Back injuries and we would have to meet the payments. Now on Incapacity Benefit and unable to get Disability allowance, because they say he might possibly be cured, our income took a dramatic nose dive, and we found it difficult to meet any of our financial obligations. Welcome finance called us in, and said not to worry, they would Halve our payments, we tried to sustain these payments for about 6 months, but were still finding it really difficult, so they lowered our payments even further, we really struggled to meet them, but my husband was a proud man and wanted to try and pay of his debts.
4 ½ years of payments went by, the car had now stood for over 3 years as nobody could drive it, my husband asked me to make enquires as to how much we had left to pay.
The Car had only cost £2000, and the Loan was for £1000 and don't forget we had been making payments for 4 ½ years, I was told we still owed approximately £5000 on the car and about £800 on the loan, I couldn't believe my ears. They said it was because we had defaulted on payback terms and were being charged a massive rate of interest, because of this, as it happens, the monthly interest was more than we were making in payments, so the debt was never coming down, but constantly increasing.
We called in the Citizens Advice Bureau, who put a lawyer onto the case, he his certain that what they have been doing isn't quite legal, and has been requesting, all the paper work from them so he can check all their alterations. Which to this date, they still haven't returned, after loads of requests, they have always managed some excuse or another.
A total of nearly 8 years have now passed by, and still no end result as yet, The Car is completely rotten and an Health hazard, We have asked Welcome finance on several occasions if we can scrap the car, but the only reply was, if we did, it would be deemed as stealing, as the car belong to them, until we had finished paying for it, so we asked them to fetch it back, but this they refuse to do, unless its in full working order.
My Husbands back has healed to a small extent, and with assistance he manages to hobble about a bit, but the break and healing process caused a lot of damage to his nervous system, which caused him to have a break down and hair loss, he suffers from panic attacks, and is finding all this pressure almost impossible to deal with, but do Welcome Finance Care? Not one bit, Until further notice, they have had to accept a £1.00 per month, which should take about 70 years to pay back, so it looks like our kids, may have to finish it off.
Welcome finance on the face of it, may seem to be the all helping company, but if you fall into any difficulties, be warned, they don't give a shit.
More details
Staff courtesy
Good
Online - Content/organization of site
Average
Online - Reliability/speed of site
Average
Online - Ease of applying for products
Good
Online - Investment tracking
Average
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