Hello Nairalanders,

I will need some good advice here over a loan I took from a commercial bank 10 years ago.

I got a car loan of N700,000 sometimes in 2007. I had a good job and was fairly okay. However after a few months, my company couldn't pay salaries again and so it became difficult to pay back the loan on a monthly basis. I couldn't also get a new job on time and even when i got one the pay was less than i was earning before. I therefore struggled with the servicing of the loans for about 4 years or so. Sometimes i paid and sometimes i defaulted. The recovery guys called several times and i tried my best to explain the situation to them.

I lost my job again and decided to embrace entrepreneurship.It was tough. I abandoned the loan totally and suprisingly he loan recovery guys stopped calling . Sometimes in 2013 or so I got an insider to help me find out the position of the loan; he told me it had been written off as bad debt and the total indebtedness then (Principal and interest) was about N350,000.I offered to pay 100k if the bank can to clear the whole thing since it was already a bad debt; but the guy said that was too small. So i left it at that.
However,I got a call from the bank about two days ago and they threatened to come after me.The shocking thing however is that the indebtedness now has shot up to over N1,000,000. I pleaded for the accumulated interest to be waived but the caller said that is impossible. I later got a mail from them asking me to send them a repayment plan within 48 hours or else they will seek all legal means to recover the loan.

Right now, i need advice from anyone who has been in this situation before or knows how to go about this. Isn't it possible for the accumulated interest to be waived? I believe the remaining principal is less than 200k.
How do i go about writing the repayment plan? Will it be acceptable if i commit to paying lets say for instance 20k per month ( this will make the repayment span about 4 years).
Will interest still be charged on the balance while i am making the repayment or it will be stopped?

Kindly advice guys.

I will appreciate if the moderator could help push this to front page so I can get quality advice.

pls advice

I believe they should write off a large chunk of the interest

Your claim that an insider told you the loan has been written off but you still needed to pay N350,000 is quite confusing. Apparently the bank didn't write off the loan, because if they did, you would have been notified officially(via a written correspondence)

The issue is quite complicated right now, and your best bet will be to get a sound lawyer(preferably a specialist in banking/commercial law) to write the bank on your behalf requesting for a meeting to negotiate a loan restructure. Banks don't write off loans at the instance of customers, hence your attempt to beg them to write off will not yield any fruit.

We need to know what the offer letter for the loan says. Take a second look at it. The loan wasn't written off most likely....

Bank loan is full of troubles I tell you. Speaking from experience.

You are back to square one bro. Simply explore ways to get the 1mil and pay it off else it could even sky-rocket beyond 1mil. They are clever i.diots who specialize in calculating compound interest. The longer you delay the higher you pay.

The MOD should help this guy move his topic to the front page

Mynd44 how far I need a loan, help me out

I feel that they deliberately left the loan to accumulate enough interest before writing you. Why did they not communicate the outstanding via mail earlier and decided to do so when they are about to take legal means?

They are clever frauds,I will say don't avoid their calls, pay them a visit first and see what comes out before involving a lawyer.

PS: don't feel threatened, the person that sent the mail is only carrying out his duties. However, begin to look for other means to pay back whatever discount they give you.

All the best, in that same bank you will become one of their biggest customers soon .its a phase,it will pass.

Peace