don't expect them to listen (Tesco Personal Finance)

Member Name: not happy

Product:	Tesco Personal Finance
Date:	01/05/08 (88 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: none what so ever

Disadvantages: they prefer court to talking

i took out an unsecured loan for £9000 with tpf as the rate was one of the lowest on the market at the time (march 2005) over a term of 5 years. at the start of the loan i was offered a 3 month payment break which i took then unfortunatly for myself i lost my job in the collapse of MG Rover a few weeks later. after the sudden loss of my job my finances went into a state of chaos for a period of weeks as i battled to get any benifits that i was entitled to, this included rearranging direct debits, cancelling payments such as councill tax etc..

after this period of financial shock i slowly started to get my finances sorted agian and carried on paying all direct debits as per usual. i thought all things were sorted and even though i was mainly living in the red things were in control. that was untill march this year when i recieved a formal notice from tpf telling me that i had defaulted on my loan and that the ammount of nearly £5000 was outstanding. after varios phone call to tpf and my bank i found out that tpf had never set up a direct debit mandate to my accont and had not bothered to take any payments for nearly 3 years and now they wanted thier money that was owed in full. tpf offered no explanation as to why this had happened or would offer any options as how this situation could be resolved on ammicable terms. i know i was at fault for not seeing that these payments were not being taken but if a payment was never taken how was i supposed to see it was missing in the first place.
i expect a properly run business to at least inform me after the first payment was missed and not to leave it for nearly 3 years to tell me that i was at fault. i have now been taken to court as tpf would not offer any other options and am now for the first time in my life cerdit blacklisted even though i have only ever missed 1 direct debit payment in the whole time i have had a bank account.(over 20 years)
i would never use any tpf sevice again as they are totaly focused on what they want and even if your circumstances change or they make a mistake you as a cosumer will not be listened to or thought of as a human being. one thing rules tpf and being human does not come into it.

i now shop at ALDI

( i didn't want to star rate them but had to to submit this reveiw)

Summary: don't use them stick with a bank you know and can talk to face to face