We had just moved into our new house in October 2002, boxes were every were and the place was a total mess, while trying to sort things out a rap came to the door, I answered it to find a man there offering me £100 worth of high street vouchers and in return he took a few personal details and left me the vouchers.
The Shop-a-Check agent said he would arrange for the agent who covered my area to call the following week to collect the first of my repayments, which would be £5.00 per week over a period of 26 weeks, total amount repayable would be approximately £130. I was quite pleased as I was wanting to buy some new odds and ends for the new house.
About the company
Shop-a-Check are a UK based company who specialise in providing customers with small unsecured personal loans. They have been in operation for around 75 years and within they time they have provided over a million loans to both new and old customers.
Shop-a-Check are similar to Provident in many ways as they are both easy to obtain a loan from, they don't mind whether a customer has a bad credit score or if they have no bank account , these loan companies will consider each application.
Contact Shop-a-Check
Obtaining a loan from Shop-a-Check is easy as they are always doing door to door advertising or their details can be found either online or in the phone book.
Getting your loan
Once you contact the office they will arrange for an agent to call to your address , they will need some personal details and paperwork needs to be filled out, this does not take long, the decision will usually take 24 - 48 hours and they will consider all circumstances. If the loan is accepted the agent will call out to your home with the money or vouchers and provide you with a payment book.
How much can a new customer borrow?
Well a new customer can borrow anything up to £500 depending on personal circumstances, however they might not agree to £500 but offer a lower amount in stead, all loans can be paid back over a period of weeks, for example 26 weeks or 52 depending on the size of the loan amount.
Paying back the money
At the time of taking out the loan the agent will tell how much you can expect the weekly payments to be and you can choose how many weeks you wish to take the loan out for, for talk sake, you take the loan over 52 weeks, the weekly payments will be a smaller amount than if you take the loan over 26 weeks.
Interest rates
Like with all loan companies, Shop-a-Check do charge interest rates and they are quite high, an undercover television programme revealed that Shop-a-Check have a turn over of 150 million pound and they charge their customers a massive 440% APR on the £100 loans.
Good Points
Handy if you need a few pound in a hurry or if there is a special occasion coming up. Easy and quick to obtain a loan The loan is delivered to your door.
Bad points
The massive interest rates . They let you have more than one loan running at a time. Getting into debt. They make so easy for people to get loans, even if they cant afford to.
I have been a Shop-a-Check customer for about six years now and while I find it handy to get a small loan now and again, I think they charge an unfair amount for interest and I would not have more than one loan running at a time. Apart from this I have never had any problems with Shop-a-Check, and my agent is really friendly and helpful.
If anyone is thinking of using a loan company, shop about and get the best deal, there are bound to be cheaper loan companies out there.
Thanks for reading!!
More details
Competitiveness of APR
Poor
Product package
Very Poor
Quality of Customer Service
Good
Reward Scheme
poor
Security and Privacy
average
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