Finance Company Best Avoided By Jennifer Kennedy on Sep 12, 2009 - Updated Oct 15, 2011

Provident is a finance company based in the UK , they have thousands of staff and customers over the country, they offer personal loans from £100 to £500, among other services and they can easily be contacted either by telephone or through their website.

Reason for the loan

About six years ago I decided to apply for a personal loan to help me out over christmas, when I think back now I regret borrowing anything from them, the interest rates they charge are absolute robbery, I cant remeber the exact figures but for borrowing £100 you paid back £150 approx.

Important details about the loan

Borrowing the money was very easy, I telephoned the company and within a few days there was a rep at my door, she explained everything I needed to know including the interest rate and that I would pay back the loan over a period of weeks, for the smaller loans I think it was around 20 weeks and for a bigger loan it would be paid back over 52 weeks, anyway she give me the money and left. The following week the agent called to collect my first payment.

How unhelpful provident were

In the coming weeks I continued to pay the loan, never missing a payment and through time I got more loans from Provident, again always paying the weekly payments without missing a week, but I had a few financial problems and I explained to my agent that I would need to reduce my weekly payments for a short while just until I got sorted out, it was then the problems started, a manager from provident tortured me with phone calls and letters, I explained my situation and they still tortured me, I understand that they need to be paid and I got myself into this debt but I hadn't stopped my payments, I had reduced them just for a short period of time.

Conclusion

I did manage to get on my feet and I paid provident off as quickly as I could and eventually I cleared my account with them, never again will I apply for a loan with one of these companies, apart from anything else the interest they charge is absolutely ridiculous.

I wish I had just joined a credit union or simply just saved up money rather than getting into debt and basically being tortured, I wouldn't recommend using this company no matter how desperate you are.

Thanks for reading