Cash Genie to pay customers £20 million compensation
27/07/2015
Cash Genie, a payday loan company, faces a £20 million compensation bill for charging customers £50 for transferring them to the firms debt collection business.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) investigated the companies past processes and found a number of serious failings, which caused detriment to many customers, such as:
• Unfair fees and interest
• Loans being rolled over or refinanced without customers’ explicit request or consent and without undertaking appropriate checks or assessments of customers’ situations
• Failure to send annual statements to customers who had not repaid their loans after 12 months
• Bank details for the company's other brands - txtmecash.co.uk and paydayiseveryday.co.uk - were used to take payment for existing Cash Genie loans. Customers were falsely told loans with these other brands were pre-approved.
Cash Genie have now agreed to pay compensation to more than 92,000 customers. They will refund any payments taken without authorisation, write off or refund fees that should not have been applied to peoples accounts and write off or refund rollover interest where the firm rolled over customers’ loans inappropriately.
Cash Genie stopped offering new payday loans to customers in September 2014, and its US-based parent firm, EZCORP, left the UK payday lending market this year.
Linda Woodall, Acting Director of Supervision – Retail and Authorisations at the FCA said:
“We have been encouraged that Cash Genie has been working with us proactively and openly to put things right for its customers after these issues were reported.
Although standards in the consumer credit sector are improving, it is disappointing that examples of poor practice in the payday market keep surfacing. We expect all firms to notify us of any unacceptable past or current practices and provide appropriate redress to anyone affected.”
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