Yes Loans - X-Ray (Update)

Been a while since I have covered Yes Loans, the dubious financial company that has a disqualified director Kieth Wilmot(he hates being called that by the way) Chorlton as an "advisor". A man who was send down for fraud and barred from holding a directorship is skirting the law by being a director in all but name and with his past one has to ask quite what financial organisation would employ a fraudster as an advisor?

But back to Yes Loans.
Link to the BBC X-Ray site. And I have posted it below.

Yes Loans - Maybe!

03 December 2007

Just nine months ago expanding Cwmbran business Yes Loans Limited promised customers they would do better.

X-Ray featured complaints from a number who thought they'd been misled by the loans company.

since then X-Ray's been contacted by more than 40 more, many of them complaining they handed over a fee of £49.50 believing they were going to get loans, that Yes Loans say were only ever examples of what they might be offered.

Malcolm James and Sheila Roberts from Prestatyn, run a small cleaning firm. They are no strangers to hard-work, but needed £20,000 to give them and their business a boost.

Christine Clarke from Cardiff earns just £5.96 an hour as a carer working with adults who have learning difficulties and mental health issues. She's struggling to make ends meet too and needed a loan of £1,500.

Both thought that Yes Loans, with their proud boast that they're a business which likes to say yes, was the answer to their financial problems.

Yes Loans employs 400 people in the Cwmbran area. And the company, which has a £31 million pound turnover, is set to expand. They're a market leader in finding loans for people who have problems getting money elsewhere.

Sheila and Malcolm planned to consolidate their debts and take a family holiday. They gave their details to Yes Loans over the phone and paid a £49.50 administration fee, because they thought Yes Loans had accepted them for a £20,000 loan at a rate of just over 11% for ten years. It was just the boost the couple needed.

But then they were contacted by another company offering a much smaller loan at a higher rate. Yes Loans have told us that they made clear to the couple that they were a broker service. They say Malcolm and Sheila misunderstood that they were being accepted by Yes as clients NOT accepted for the loan itself.

Christine was also surprised to be contacted by another company offering a loan after speaking to Yes Loans. She too paid £49.50 after discussing a loan of £1,500 at a rate of around 25%, but what she was offered by the second company would have cost her almost as much in interest charges as the loan itself.

Yes Loans say customers complaining to X-Ray represent a very small proportion of the hundreds of thousands of people they are contacted by every year. They say they have made changes to their operations "to improve significantly our ability to service customers and deal with their applications."

They say they've re-written phone scripts and paperwork. And that shortly into customer calls, operates tell them that the company is a licensed credit brokers working with top UK lenders to provide loans.

They also say that they have now revised their policy on refunding the fee to unhappy customers. If a customer requests a refund in writing, they will return the fee within 90 days.

But Yes Loans do say they acknowledge that the conversation Sheila and Malcolm had with their operative was open to interpretation. The company refunded Sheila and Malcolm's administration fee after the couple took advice from Consumer Direct and wrote to them. Christine Clarke's fee, along with 15 other customers, has been refunded after X Ray passed on all the details to Yes Loans.

Companies like Yes Loans are regulated by the Office of Fair Trading and are legally bound to be clear in their dealings with the public. Complaints made to Consumer Direct are automatically referred to the OFT and can, on investigation, lead to companies having their licence removed, which will stop them trading once and for all.

If you fee you have been misled or unfairly treated by a credit broker, you can get advice from Consumer Direct by ringing 0845 4040 506, or you can contact the Office of Fair trading to complain on their enquiries number 0845 722 4499.

**Maybe I will get another e-mail from Kieth or someone at Yes threatening to "break my legs" and muttering dark threats! I had this gem from one of Keith's minions or maybe the man himself.

Anonymous said...

The net is closing in on you my son, and when I find you, you will never walk again. That I fucking promise you.

**Such class. Still at least I don't have a poorly fitting ginger wig or do coke in the staff toilets.

Also the below link will take you to the companies house website, enter 04553449, and lo there be Kieth's Yes Loans details. Although no brownie points for Crossit Target Marketing, as there accounts from 2006 are still overdue. There ref is 04137383
http://www.companieshouse.gov.uk/toolsToHelp/findCompanyInfo.sht

THE first thing you need to know about Yes Loans is that it’s not actually a loan company. It charges £49.50 to put you in touch with other firms, which may or may not give you a loan.

And if you don’t get one, receiving a refund proves a nightmare, according to victims who’ve contacted us.

The second thing you need to know is that Yes Loans is owned by Keith Chorlton, who is currently serving a 10-year ban on acting as a company director.

Chorlton, 56, had siphoned £460,000 from his insolvent dating agency, leaving creditors unpaid.

And here is the proof as reported in The Guardian
WLA Case Study - Now this I had not seen before, check the PDF out. Nice to see the WDA spending taxpayers money on a company run by convicted fraudster.
Mirror story- Yes Loans like to say no.
BBC Wales: X-Ray(again) The customers who wish they’d said “no”- One of the better tv programs.

I shall finish with some reviews of Yes Loans/Blue Sky/Dial from the internet:
http://www.blagger.com/db4/company_id/574/companyname/Yes-Loans.html
http://www.reviewcentre.com/reviews95640.html
http://blogs.mirror.co.uk/mirrorinvestigates/penman/feb2007/notoloans.htm
http://www.moneysupermarket.com/community/forums/t/yes-loans-9088.aspx?Source=MS
http://www.filesaveas.co.uk/cgi-bin/consumer/YaBB.pl?num=1102088733
http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/general-consumer-issues/66806-yes-loans-more-like.html
Some more on Dial and in particular Alan Paul Spedding and Keith Wilmot Chorlton.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/tm_headline=penman---sommerlad-investigate--these-yes-men-are-a-real-no-no-&method=full&objectid=18183777&siteid=94762-name_page.html
http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,235408,00.html
http://www.ginfo.pl/more/273171,HONEYMOON,IS,OVER,FOR,COMPUTER,DATING,AGENCY,BOSS.html

Ye olde Tags: Keith Chorlton
Dial
Yes Loans
Gordon Bon
Mel Roberts
Gaby Cocchiria
Talk Talk
Alan Spedding

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