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5 November 2007
A couple has spoken about the thousands of pounds they were charged by a secured loan lender for insurance that they could never use. The couple, Mr and Mrs Townley, decided to take a loan from the secured lender First Plus, and its affiliation with the television star Carol Vorderman made the couple think that there would be no problem with the whole process. However, the couple, who took out the loan two years ago, said that they have experienced nothing but financial problems ever since.
The Townleys state that they were charged over eighteen thousand pounds for Payment Protection Insurance cover that they did not need or want after being persuaded to purchase the insurance cover when they took out the loan. The couple first approached the loan company for a loan of £34,000 secured against their home. They wanted to use the money to consolidate their other debts in order to ease their finances and free up more disposable income each month.
When they took out the loan the Townleys state that they were pressured to take out Payment Protection Insurance cover. This insurance is designed to protect borrowers against being unable to meet repayments due to sickness, accident, or redundancy, and covers repayments for a specified length of time. However, over recent months there has been much controversy about this type of policy due to evidence of widespread mis-selling.
Even though they did not need the insurance, as Mrs Townley was not working and Mr Townley had cover through his employer, they were talked into taking out cover costing eight thousand pounds. Just months later the couple applied for a further loan of ten thousand pounds for a car, and were told that they would have to consolidate their previous loan into the new one. They receive a rebate of just two thousand pounds on their previous cover and were pressured into taking out another policy with the new loan, costing over twelve thousand pounds.
Mr Townley stated: 'We were led to believe we had to take out PPI to get the loan, though we have found out this was not true. We thought we could trust a company being promoted by Carol Vorderman, but we were wrong. We are more in debt with little prospect of being able to clear it for more than 20 years.'
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