Littlewoods mess

dubdev

Hi there

I am a Littlewoods account holder for the past few months and have ordered several items from the company, and have always paid on time. I was granted a credit limit increase yesterday, and ordered an item, still leaving the balance within the limit.

I checked the order today to see it had been declined, and my credit limit reduced to zero! No explanation or notification why. I rang up their support line, and the guy couldn't offer me a coherent answer as to why this was. He referred me to their "security team" who simply told me that my account had failed security checks, and was on payment only mode.
I enquired why this is and she kept repeating the same statement that "we don't divulge that information."

Is that even legal? Surely as a consumer I'm entitled to know why they have seemingly arbitrarily locked my account without offering me an explanation.

dubdev

I rang them again, and basically they wanted to know why i was getting items delivered to different addresses (I always get stuff bought online delivered to work, and I changed jobs) and why I had bought several high value items (300-400). So these are obviously the reasons why, but there is no mention of that in their Ts & Cs, and it seems like overkill to tell you the truth.

nava

dubdev wrote: »

Hi there

I am a Littlewoods account holder for the past few months and have ordered several items from the company, and have always paid on time. I was granted a credit limit increase yesterday, and ordered an item, still leaving the balance within the limit.

I checked the order today to see it had been declined, and my credit limit reduced to zero! No explanation or notification why. I rang up their support line, and the guy couldn't offer me a coherent answer as to why this was. He referred me to their "security team" who simply told me that my account had failed security checks, and was on payment only mode.
I enquired why this is and she kept repeating the same statement that "we don't divulge that information."

Is that even legal? Surely as a consumer I'm entitled to know why they have seemingly arbitrarily locked my account without offering me an explanation.

Not sure if they will need to send you the criteria they use to do the security checks and would e internal policies.

The only way I think you can get some information is requesting it under the data protection act, more information here, but they might not provide the information you are looking for on the security check.

Cabaal

Credit is purely at their discretion, if they decide due to review that that providing credit to you might be risky then they can certainly withdrawn the credit. Its their right to do so.

Given Littlewoods APR is 39.9% I personally wouldn't touch the credit as you can get even credit cards with a better APR then that.

dubdev

I've sent a letter of complaint anyway. On their website it says that you'll be notified if your account is modified, and your account can be closed if you fail to make repayments - neither of the two happened! I will be seeking assurances from them concerning any information they add to my ICB record, and will be requesting the information they hold about me under the data protection act.

nava

MOD: I think more suited for consumer issues. Moved

VincePP

Icb credit record simply cannot be affected by this.

As above, they charge a phenomenal 39.9% interest. Christ, even the worst credit card is half that.

Think of it - an item costing €100 would cost almost €140 after a year if they allowed 12months to pay. That's extortionate.

On too of that they are bloody expensive.

And you are complaining?

I'd be writing a letter of thanks.

cml387

There is a similar issue over on the Tesco forum about comapanies disabling accounts due to security concerns.
It seems to me that companies are damned if they do and damned if they don't.
Obviously it's inconvenient to have an account suspended, but even more inconvenient for the customer if their card is used fraudulently.