• President of UOKIK Tomasz Chróstny imposed a fine on Profi Credit Polska in the amount of over PLN 4 million for practices that violate collective consumer interests.
• The lender would charge fees in excess of consumers’ loans and disburse further loans to them without obtaining their consent and without assessing their creditworthiness.
• The company failed to provide consumers with reliable information about the terms of contract termination and improperly charged consumers for the period following the contract termination.

Profi Credit Polska Spółka Akcyjna from Bielsko-Biała has been granting cash loans since February 2015 (it also executes agreements as the legal successor of Profi Credit Poland Sp. z o.o. and Profi Credit Sp. z o.o.). Numerous complaints about that loan company have been submitted to the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection. Doubts concerned, inter alia, a very high insurance fee charged by the company.

- Profi Credit Polska disbursed subsequent loans to its customers without their approval and without assessing the consumers’ ongoing capacity to repay the loan. When the consumer failed to repay the loan and the company terminated the contract, the company demanded high insurance fees and remuneration for the period following the termination of the contract, as well as covering the costs of collection activities – explains President of UOKiK Tomasz Chróstny.

Profi Credit Polska failed to provide consumers with reliable information about the terms of contract termination and charged consumers additionally for the period following the contract termination. It also charged customers for text message reminders, phone calls or other communications at the maximum contractual amounts. The company followed this practice until March 2016. Afterwards, it introduced new contract templates and ceased, inter alia, making further payments without consumers’ knowledge and without prior verification of their creditworthiness.

Despite abandoning the above practices, the company did not act with full fairness to consumers and continued to engage in further unlawful actions by demanding that consumers - whose contracts it had terminated due to default on repayment of debts - should cover the costs associated with the loans granted on account of remuneration for the period following contract termination.

- For unlawful actions, contrary to good practices and breaching information obligations, I have imposed a fine of over PLN 4 million on Profi Credit Polska and obliged the company to eliminate the consequences of the questioned practices. The company was also obliged to publish a statement on its website informing about the decision made by the consumer protection authority - adds the President of UOKiK.

For more information, please read the UOKiK decision. The decision is not final. The company has the right to appeal against this decision to the Court of Competition and Consumer Protection.

Consumer support

Consumer, remember that you may refer to the final decision of the President of the Office when asserting your rights in court.

If you have problems with a lender, it is worth filing a complaint. If it is rejected, we recommend contacting a consumer advocate in your area.

Additional information for consumers:

Phone: 801 440 220 or +48 22 290 89 16 – consumer helpline
e-mail: porady@dlakonsumentow.pl
Consumer advocates – in your town or district

Additional information for the media:

UOKiK Press Office
Pl. Powstańców Warszawy 1, 00-950 Warszawa, Poland
Phone +48 695 902 088, +48 22 55 60 246
E-mail: biuroprasowe@uokik.gov.pl
Twitter: @UOKiKgovPL