09064001972

I have just got my phone bill, what the Hell is going on!!!
2 premium calls made total cost- £40.39!!!!!
I did not make these calls, in fact i was NOT IN.
I will be calling TalkTalk in the morning if i dont get an explanation and a Full
refund i will take it futher.

Do not use this company!!!!!!
Scam
Scam
Scam

Hi Helen

I  have worked within the customer service department at CFD for the last 12 years.

Cash Finance Direct Limited, trading as Horizon Finance, is a master finance broker who helps individuals to arrange loans. We do not lend the money ourselves, but take your details through our telephone service, and pass them on to our extensive panel of lenders with the intent of them making an offer of finance to you directly.

We have a UK based call centre just outside Manchester, our full postal contact can be found here: http://horizonfinance.co.uk/contact.aspx, we have offered our service since 1996.
Our company registration number is 03173946, our consumer credit licence number is 0503842, we are also registered with the Information Commissioners office number Z5629285.  We are accredited with the ISO 9001 award for approved quality management systems used in the running of the service we offer.

We have been heavily regulated to operate the service we offer since 1996. We are licenced by both Phonepay Plus for our premium rate lines, and The Office of Fair Trading for our licence to arrange financial products on behalf of our customers. We also comply with the Information Commissioners operating code when processing client’s personal data. We are exempt from registration with the FSA (Financial services authority) as we do not arrange secured loans or lend money ourselves.

Compliance is absolutely paramount to our organisation, we have scripted wording for our agents to ensure they say only what they are permitted to say, nothing more, and nothing less. This is further supported by our ISO 9001 award for approved quality management systems, both of which demonstrate our commitment to staff training to ensure the service received by our clients is fully compliant at all times.

We are a business, and therefore cannot operate our service for free, the back-up support, underwriting department, customer services department, agent costs, extended opening hours and other benefits have a cost attached to them, we must cover this cost by the use of our premium rate call.

We are transparent with our customers and do not disguise the fact that we generate an income from the use of our Premium Rate service. The call charges are provided from the outset, you will be answered by an automated greeting confirming the cost of the call and maximum call time before any conversation takes place, allowing you, the customer, to make a choice of whether or not to continue with using our service. Using premium rate telephone lines allows us not to be guided by which of our lenders will reward us with the biggest commissions, but on which lender is right for our customers and their individual circumstances or loan requirements.

We do not charge upfront application or administration fees, there are many other finance brokers in the market who charge up to £70.00 to take your details and pass them on to a lender.

A handful of the many benefits to using our service.....

•    No waiting in a call queue when using our service.
•    Dedicated agents dealing with your enquiry from start to finish.
•    One of the largest lending panels in the UK with a dedicated underwriting department.
•    A full “no questions asked” refund policy for any costs incurred in using our service.  
•    Dedicated customer services department offering freephone support from 9am to 7pm.
•    Long opening hours - 8am to 9pm on Weekdays and Saturday from 9am to 4pm.
•    UK call centre employing local, friendly and knowledgeable staff to handle your call efficiently.    
•    Investor in people and ISO 9001 accredited telephone agents dealing with your call.    
•    Regular updates and lender contact details sent to you free of charge by SMS and also by email.

We are sometimes asked “why charge for a premium rate call only to offer a refund of the costs”  just as you would not expect to help yourself to products free of charge at your local supermarket simply because they had a money back guarantee, we operate in the same way. We hope that the hard work, investment in staff training, and continual improvements in every aspect of the service we offer will be recognised by many of our customers, who in turn are happy to pay for the relatively small cost of the call, as they feel they have received real value for money based on their own experiences.  

We would like to help every single customer get exactly what they want, unfortunately, this would be an impossible task and however hard we try and however many lenders we have on our panel we cannot help everyone. If, for whatever reason, you are not 100% completely satisfied with our service and would like to claim your money back, we offer a full “no questions asked” money back guarantee for the full costs of your call.  

The law permits us to retain £5.00 towards the expenses we have incurred in processing your enquiry, however, we have chosen to waive this right and will always offer a full refund.  

It is very important to us that our customers feel completely satisfied with the service we offer, and if you don’t, for whatever reason, we feel that you should not have to pay for it. We won’t question your reasons for wanting a refund, but we do appreciate your feedback so we may use it to focus our attentions on what is truly important to our customers.

In order to obtain a full refund, we would simply ask that you send in a copy of your telephone bill (to ensure that we do not underpay you) highlighting the calls made to our service.

If sending by post, you can either send it using our freepost service as below:  

(No stamp required, simply write the above address on your envelope and we pay the cost)

Customer Services Department
FREEPOST
CFD
SK1 1TA

Or, you can use our normal postal address, but will need to place a stamp on your envelope:

Cash Finance Direct Limited
Floor 7
Dale House
Tiviot Dale
Stockport
Cheshire
SK1 1TA

A scanned copy of your telephone bill will be perfectly acceptable, please send it via email to:  customerservices@horizonfinance.co.uk

If you are in any doubt that we have received your refund request, please do not hesitate to contact us, ideally via email to customerservices@horizonfinance.co.uk and we will come back to you as quickly as we can with an anticipated payment date, please include your name, address and telephone number so we can contact you via telephone if we need to.  

Regards

Customer Service Team

http://blogs.mirror.co.uk/investigations/2010 ... orizon-fin.html
Same old scam from Horizon Finance
NOVEMBER 18, 2010

It's 12 years since we exposed Horizon Finance, the Stockport loan brokers run by Mark Pickston, revealing how customers were kept hanging on his £1-a-minute phone lines.

Wind forward to 2010 and Horizon Finance, the trading name of Cash Finance Direct Ltd, has just been fined £50,000 by the premium rate phones watchdog PhonepayPlus.

It ruled that customers were misled over costs of calling and, yup, suffered unreasonable delays.

"Compliance is absolutley (that's their spelling) paramount to our organisation" boasts the Horizon website.

Course it is Mark.
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http://blogs.mirror.co.uk/investigations/1999 ... d-for-prem.html
Horizon Finance fined for premium rate rip-off
OCTOBER 1, 1999

Parasite Mark Pickston is back to his old tricks, ripping people off with his bogus offers to fix credit ratings.

Pickston runs Manchester-based Horizon Finance, the trading name for Cash Finance Direct Ltd.

Last year Sorted revealed how Horizon promised to act as a credit repair agent for a £45 fee.

Victims got an "information pack" - which consisted of widely-known facts available from any Citizens Advice Bureau.

Horizon is under investigation by the Office of Fair Trading who have warned Pickston that they are considering revoking his consumer credit licence.

Undeterred, Horizon has been sending out unsolicited mail claiming to find people loans despite debts or County Court judgements.

The leaflet reads "Please telephone us urgently ... We have tried to contact you regarding your loan application."

But replies to the leaflet go to a premium rate phone number which costs £1 a minute - and the call lasts up to 15 minutes before you are told to call back to another premium rate line.

But Pickston's scam has been rumbled.

The premium rate watchdog ICSTIS found that Horizon made four "serious breaches" of guidelines and fined it £500.
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http://blogs.mirror.co.uk/investigations/1998 ... patrick-ru.html
Horizon Finance and Patrick Ruane preying on the poor
OCTOBER 30, 1998

ATRICK Ruane and Mark Pickston cash in by preying on the poor.

They make their money from unfortunate people desperate to escape from the credit blacklist.

The pair put out advertisements offering to help those refused mortgages or bank accounts.

Their methods differ but the result is the same - their hard-up victims are ripped off and left even more out of pocket.

Ruane charges people struggling with debt an amazing pounds 33 - for a phone call.

Callers to the 29-year-old mortgage broker's premium-rate line are told they are about to receive a bargain. They are instructed to listen to all of the tape-recorded message played from Ruane's office in Charlton Place, Manchester.

What they are not told is that the message lasts for 33 minutes, each of those costing £1.

Ruane's advert promises to reveal the "secrets of credit". But far from being secret, the information on the tape could be obtained for free at a Citizens' Advice Bureau.

Startling advice on the tape includes a long speech on the virtues of keeping writing materials to hand.

Ruane rambles on: "In order to gain the maximum benefit from this service, we recommend that you have a pen and paper handy during listening to this service to make notes and copy down addresses that we will give you.""

At the end of his long-drawn-out message, Ruane has the cheek to say: "Thank you for your time."

When Sorted asked how he could justify charging pounds 33 a call to people on the credit blacklist, Ruane said: "The decision on whether to call the line is with the caller."

Then - though not on the tape - came perhaps his best bit of advice: "If people want this information they are quite free to go anywhere. They don't have to use our telephone service, they can go to the Citizens' Advice Bureau."

A spokeswoman for the Citizens' Advice Bureau said: "This information is indeed available from our offices all over the country - and there is no charge.

"The chances are that if people need this sort of information they are in bad financial circumstances.

"In this situation especially, there's no reason to pay for something they can get for free."

Sorted readers will be familiar with our other credit blacklist shark, Mark Pickston.

Last month, we told how callers to his premium-rate line are kept on for many minutes as they try to get a loan. Now we can reveal that Pickston's offer of help to those on the credit blacklist is just as fake.

His company, Horizon Finance, promises to act as your credit repair agent on receipt of pounds 45 by cheque, postal order or cash. In return for this fee, victims receive "information packs" which offer advice on getting bad credit ratings removed.

These "packs" consist of a seven-page leaflet. And neither Pickston nor his staff mention that the widely-known facts that are given are again obtainable for free at any Citizens' Advice Bureau.

Much of the information is even on offer in a free leaflet at county courts. Pickston, from Altrincham, Cheshire, has been behind a series of companies which have ceased trading, and is currently a director of Charles Ashworth Finance, Cash Finance Direct and Titanic Finance.

The 38-year-old rip-off artist assures Sorted that he offers a "superb service".

The Office of Fair Trading may not agree, because it has placed Pickston's business dealings under investigation.

Our findings on Pickston's latest ploy will be passed to the OFT.
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not to mention the recent £50,000 fine from PhonepayPlus.....so if you have worked there in 'the customer service department' what does that say about you!