Painful Communications
After the bullying and unprofessionalism from J, especially due to his senior position in the company, I felt the only step was to raise a formal complaint.
J had signed off his last email to me with “if you are dissatisfied with this outcome, you have the right to escalate your concerns to our complaints team, who will conduct an independent review and take any necessary corrective steps.”
I wanted to make sure that what I thought was said on the call with J actually was and I hadn’t got anything wrong due to it being such a horrible and emotional experience.
I thought the best course of action was to raise a Subject Data Access Request at the same time as starting the complaint. As J had already told me that my account was being sold to a third-party debt provider I was concerned that an investigation into the complaint could be moot once it was already sold. If another company has bought the debt from YouLend ( for pennies on the pound ) then YouLend wouldn’t be able to negotiate any further with me and the harassment would just continue from someone else.
I emailed YouLend’s complaints department :
Good Afternoon,
I wish to raise a complaint about how I have been treated by your organisation, and in particular how abused I have been by your “Head of Collections and Recoveries” J.
Please find attached a subject data access request.
I am led to believe that you are now “selling” my debt to a third-party debt provider. J has told me, “If you are dissatisfied with this outcome, you have the right to escalate your concerns to our complaints team, who will conduct an independent review and take any necessary corrective steps.”
Therefore I now ask that you pause the process whilst my complaint is investigated. If you are unable to do this, then you are in breach of J’s statement that you will conduct an independent review and take any necessary corrective steps.
As my complaint is lengthy, and will absolutely be subject to external scrutiny, I will need to rely on some details from my subject data access request.
I ask that you open a complaint, pending the subject data access request, and once I have received this I will submit my complaint promptly, and in full.
Kind Regards,
A few days later I received a response from S, one of their complaints department executives :
FROM YOULEND
Dear M,
Thank you for your continued patience while we process your Data Subject Access Request (DSAR).
While we are working on this request, I must share with you information as up-to-date as I receive it. As such, I must inform you that your case has now been passed to our third-party partner, Shire Recoveries Ltd.
I note that in your initial email, you requested that I pause this process while I reviewed your complaint. Having reviewed your case with the information I have to hand (recognising that you wish to bring a full complaint to our attention following the data we will provide to you), I have decided to decline your request to pause this process. I have done so for two reasons:
I must stress that our passing your case onto Shire Recoveries does not affect this complaint, which I intend to address in full. You will be contacted by them in due course at which point you can share the details they need so they can come to a manageable repayment plan with you.
If you have any questions about this, or anything else, please do let me know and I can personally look into it for you. Otherwise, I will be in touch once I have an update on your DSAR request.
Regards,
S
“Having reviewed your case with the information to hand” . . . . YouLend have done no such thing. Anyone who had even a slight look behind the curtain, let alone listen to the call with their “Head of Collections Recoveries” would understand how appallingly I’d been treated. S goes on to mention two credit card companies which are included on our Standard Financial Statement but have no bearing on this. S fails to mention the other creditor who is very much their identical business model.
S cannot comprehend that by selling the debt to another company they immediately lose all ability to resolve this matter with me. S also doubles down on their position that they wanted to overreach on personal information, and grovelling job hunting progress, despite them already just blindly following their own process.
I needed to get some clarity on them selling our debt and what it meant. The email exchange was infuriating :
TO YOULEND
Dear S,
You claim your position is to still be able to address my complaint in full. Based on this, depending on the outcome of the complaint, do you still have the ability / option of :
1. Writing off this debt.
or
2. Negotiating and accepting a full and final settlement with payment.
Regards
FROM YOULEND
Dear M,
You're correct I still intend to address your complaint in full once you provide it. Just so you're aware, we are already in the process of writing off the debt, by proxy of defaulting on the loan agreement.
If you wish to make a full and final payment to settle the account, we would be happy to arrange that - the details to do so are as follows:
Reference: XXXXXXX
Account name: YouLend Limited
Account Number: XXXXXXXX
Sort code: XX-XX-XX
Amount: £XXXXXX
If you could let me know if you do make said payment so I can let our Payments Team know so they can allocate it as soon as possible; so we can pause the escalation to our third-party partner, Azzuro, that would be appreciated.
Please let me know if there is anything further you wish for me to address, otherwise we will be in contact with the information you've requested via DSAR.
Regards,
S
TO YOULEND
Dear S,
You have not answered my question.
You are not in the process of writing off the debt as far as I am concerned. If you were writing off the debt for me this conversation would not be happening, and you especially wouldn’t be asking me to pay £XXXXX when you are already aware of my financial situation and have “marked on my file that there is a financial vulnerability”.
I have already asked you to pause any escalation / process of this case until the facts of the injustice can be outlined and presented. Who are Azzuro you now mention ?
Please can you answer my original question.
You claim your position is to still be able to address my complaint in full, as you have just repeated. Based on this, depending on the outcome of the complaint, do you still have the ability / option of :
1. Writing off this debt - TO ME, not some internal ledger or sale of the debt to another company.
or
2. Negotiating and accepting a full and final settlement with payment. This is a negotiation between YouLend and myself to agree a full and final payment.
Yours Sincerely,
FROM YOULEND
Dear M,
I apologise that you feel I did not appropriately address your most recent question regarding our process for escalation with your outstanding balance. The reason I provided you with our bank details is that in your previous email, you stated that you may wish to negotiate a full and final payment to settle the balance; I simply provided you with the banking details to do so if you wished (rather than explicitly requesting any payment above what we naturally would, as you state).
Just so you're aware, as we continue the process of escalating your account to our third-party provider Azzurro Associates Limited, who has assigned Shire Recoveries Limited to recover the outstanding balance; you can use these details to clear the outstanding balance if you wish to during this process.
Once this has been completed in the coming days, you will be contacted by Shire Recoveries who will be able to provide you with a repayment plan that, as you say with the circumstances of your vulnerability, will provide you with options for repayments.
Notwithstanding the above points being true, once you have raised your complaint in full I will address it. These two points are not mutually exclusive, we can both write off your advance, as we are in the process of doing, and address your complaint, as I intend to do.
If you have any further questions about this, please do let me know.
Regards,
S
TO YOULEND
Dear S,
I feel like you are being deliberately obstructive in your responses.
You have put in writing that you are in the process of writing off my advance. To a layman that means you have given up trying to collect the money owed and you will remove the loan from your books. I suspect this is not the case and is just another example, despite me asking you not to, of using internal language to say you have sold the debt. I have no interest in your accounting, but of course I do when it comes to money you are wanting from me.
Negotiating a full and final settlement does not mean, necessarily, that it is paid in full. This is a legal term which I’m sure you are more than aware of. It also clearly states “negotiating” which tends to mean a movement or concession from both sides.
I will try yet again to get a response to a very clear and simple question.
You claim your position is to still be able to address my complaint in full, as you have just repeated several times. Based on this, depending on the outcome of the complaint, do you (YouLend) still have the ability / option of :
1. Writing off this debt - TO ME, not some internal ledger or sale of the debt to another company.
or
2. Negotiating and accepting a full and final settlement with payment. This is a negotiation between YouLend and myself to agree a full and final payment of a value to be mutually agreed.
Yours Sincerely,
FROM YOULEND
Dear M,
I can assure you I am not trying to be obstructive in any way, I'm trying to address the points you raise with as much detail as necessary.
In layman's terms yes, you're correct. We no longer believe there is any way for us to recover the funds internally, and we will now rely on our external partner to recover the funds. This means we've written off the debt ourselves, and it's been passed to our third-party Shire Recoveries - your debt no longer belongs to YouLend Limited.
To specifically answer your points (although in my two previous emails, I believe I already have):
Yes, we can write off your debt, we have already started this process as we speak.
No, we would not renegotiate the outstanding balance with a merchant once the advance has been taken. Once you sign an agreement contract and take the funding, the full amount is expected to be repaid.
If you have any other points of clarification you wish for me to make please do let me know.
Regards,
S
TO YOULEND
Dear S,
Again you continue to be really obstructive here.
I am not talking about “writing off” the debt as in your ledgers. I’ve said this several times now. I am talking about writing it off full stop and NOT pursuing it any further. As in I NO LONGER OWE IT TO YOU OR ANYONE ELSE.
Therefore, I feel you have answered my question, albeit in a roundabout way. You have now confirmed that the debt no longer belongs to YouLend. By extension of this it then means that you would be unable to either :
1. Write off this debt - TO ME, not some internal ledger or sale of the debt to another company.
or
2. Negotiate and accept a full and final settlement with payment. This is a negotiation between YouLend and myself to agree a full and final payment of a value to be mutually agreed.
Despite my very reasonable request to stay proceedings whilst we deal with a complaint, you have chosen to sell my debt on. This directly contradicts your position of “fully addressing my complaint”.
How can you address my complaint when you not longer have a contract with me ?
Your actions are unreasonable, lacking empathy and incredibly predatory. My family and I are just a number in a ledger to you. We are not real people. We are not real people whom you’ve already made tens of thousands of pounds of profit from over X previous loans. You are loan sharks in every sense of the word.
Yours Sincerely,
FROM YOULEND
Dear M,
You do not have to have an active contract with us to contact us; you do not have to currently be repaying an advance for me to respond to any questions or concerns you have.
I'll be in touch with the data you have requested. If you need anything in the meantime, feel free to respond to this email.
Regards,
S
TO YOULEND
Dear S,
You have avoided another one of my questions. I’ll keep this short so it’s easier.
Possible Scenario :
After investigation of the complaint it is found that YouLend has acted inappropriately and has breached our contract. Reparations are agreed which either cover the entire balance or a reduced balance. A full and final agreement is agreed by both parties.
How can you enact this scenario if my debt “no longer belongs to YouLend” ?
Yours Sincerely,
FROM YOULEND
Dear M,
Thanks for your email.
Although I understand the reason why you wish to ask what the possible outcomes are if we were to uphold your complaint, I would ask that you first raise your complaint in full so that I can review it and respond in kind.
I respect your decision to wait until you have reviewed the data we will be providing within your DSAR request, which we will be sharing as soon as possible.
If you have any questions in the meantime, please do let me know, otherwise we will be in touch shortly.
Regards,
S
TO YOULEND
Dear S,
Again, you are not treating me fairly here.
Why is it reasonable for me to allow you to review my complaint in full first when you haven’t been reasonable and placed a short stay on proceedings as I asked for ?
I am asking you a very simple question and have done several times. Each time you have ignored it.
If you were to uphold my complaint, do you have control over the debt ( its allocation, its size, wiping it clean, reducing the balance etc ) or is this now out of your control as you have sold it on ?
Yours Sincerely,
FROM YOULEND
Dear M,
Thanks for your email.
As always, we will review matters appropriately and take any necessary action where it's needed.
We'll reach out to you with the data you asked for soon.
Regards,
S
TO YOULEND
Dear S,
You have now failed to answer my question despite repeated attempts. There is clearly something you are hiding.
Please can you answer my question :
If you were to uphold my complaint, do you have control over the debt ( its allocation, its size, wiping it clean, reducing the balance etc ) or is this now out of your control as you have sold it on ?
If you are unable to answer this question yet again, please can you let me know the escalation path as this matter, and YouLend’s conduct will be being referred to both the FCA and my MP.
Yours Sincerely,
FROM YOULEND
Dear M,
I've addressed your question appropriately, we wouldn't comment on the outcome of a complaint before the complaint is even raised.
Please note that you will only be able to refer complaints to the Financial Ombudsman Service about payment services - this means the settlement accounts for merchants that are operated and controlled by YouLend where funds can be sent by sales processors or card processors to repay the merchant financing.
Merchant financing is not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and so the Financial Ombudsman Service will be unable to consider any complaints related to your merchant financing agreement or subsequent contact between yourself and our Collections and Recoveries Team.
You can, however, contact your MP as you wish regarding this matter - although, we would kindly request you raise the complaint with us first so we can have the opportunity to address it first.
Regards,
S
And there you have it. Refusal to be reasonable and place a short stay on proceedings. Refusal to be open and discuss my own situation with me, hiding (just like J did) from any hypothetical discussions. And then jumping straight in to tell me I’ve got no chance with the regulators because they’re not even regulated.
I now just needed to wait for my Data Subject Access Request to be processed. Surely, after this back and forth with S and especially with him saying “we will be in touch shortly” regarding it, it’ll be with me soon. Knowing there is a complaint waiting in the wings surely they won’t make me wait the full maximum of 30 days for a response ?
Will they ?
29 days, 23 hours later, I receive the response.
They made me wait. They made me wait for nearly another whole month. Knowing the stress I was under with this, the feeling they were coming after my house for all this time and there was nothing I could do but wait.
Surely, as they’d needed the entire mandated time it was going to be complete and entire too ? No. They couldn’t even get that right. They withheld information on Shire Recoveries. The company I wouldn’t have know anything about unless S had been crystal clear :
“it's been passed to our third-party Shire Recoveries - your debt no longer belongs to YouLend Limited.”
I asked them to respond with this missing information within 7 days. Can you guess how long they took ? The full 7 days ! Within the 7 days sparing a couple of minutes.
This shows the complete contempt YouLend treat their customers with.
I’m sure if you’ve read this far you’re as frustrated as I was with the obfuscation from S. The steadfast claim that they can’t negotiate because they’ve sold the debt, that they can’t discuss hypotheticals because it’s not their problem any longer and it’s been “written off”.
The biggest issue here is that due to S's incorrect assertion that the debt had been sold on, I was left unable to start negotiations with YouLend. I was in limbo but didn't know it. It was only when the DSAR information was back that the truth came out.
Quote from S : “it's been passed to our third-party Shire Recoveries - your debt no longer belongs to YouLend Limited.”
Quote from Data Subject Access Request response : “To be clear, YouLend is still and will always be the legal owner of this debt - we have not sold the debt but have assigned a third-party (as previously notified to you) to collect the debt on our behalf”.
The left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing.
I’ve had two very senior people dealing with this so far. Senior people at a very large organisation who really do not care about what they do, what they say, how it affects their customers and how it reflects on the organisation.
They are playing with people’s lives.
The complaint has been sent. Whilst it’s being dealt with it’s not appropriate to comment on it further here but I will update the site as soon as I am able to.
However, whilst all this back and forth with S was going on, he was right on two things. He HAD rejected my request for a stay on proceedings and he HAD passed the account onto Shire Recoveries Limited.
Were they cut from the same cloth as YouLend ? How did J’s “renowned debt collector” company behave ?
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