Nadia was forced into being a guarantor on a loan by a relative, but when she told the lender, they didn't help her.
What happened
Nadia told us that she'd been forced to take out several guarantor loans by a family member who was verbally and physically abusing her. She told us the borrower was present when the loan provider rang her, and because of the abuse she'd felt she had no choice but to agree. But she told us that she'd never completed the income and expenditure form, nor signed an agreement.
The business said she had agreed to everything, and they'd listened to recordings of the phone calls and had no cause for concern. So Nadia contacted us.
What we said
We disagreed with what the business said. The agreement for the guarantor had been sent to the borrower's own email address, but the business didn't investigate this. And when we analysed the phone calls, we could hear that in all of them, Nadia hesitated over key questions, and that there was someone in the background telling her what to say. The advisers from the business had seemed to notice this too, but still went ahead with the loans.
We told the business to pay Nadia back everything she'd paid towards the loans, with 8% interest, and pay her for the distress and inconvenience they caused.