Authorities have fined Budget Loans for various offences under the Fair Trading Act. It has been fined for $30,750 by the Commerce Commission. The Company is owned by Allan Hawkins, who has already been convicted for misleading investors.

Budget Loans admitted to being guilty of 34 charges as per the Fair Trading Act. It had also appeared in the Auckland District Court and admitted to its wrongdoings.

After Budget Loans took over the assets of National Finance and all its loans, it informed all the debtors of National Finance that their loans are now owned by Budget Loans. All the people who received this letter were charged a fee of $15.     

Budget Loans did not inform the people about this fee before charging it. It told people that it was authorized to charge this fee but it was not authorized to do the same. This information was provided by the Auckland Enforcement Manager, Graham Gill.

As a result of this, the Company has agreed to refund more than $400,000 of the approximately $500,000 fee it charged from the people. The court also warned the Company not to repeat something like this in the future.   

Apart from this, Budget Loans has also agreed to refund $571,000 to its debtors, which it had taken from them as various other charges.

Budget Loans had acquired the $23 million worth of non-performing and performing loans that belonged to National Finance for a sum of $7.7 million.