WendyB (ficticious) Mortgage Arrears

[WendyB]

Some of you may remember I have been looking into changing our mortgage deal when our fixed rate ends very soon. However, every time I ring to get the figures, there is a discrepancy between what the Mortgage centre tells me, and what is on my statement, and what the account management department tells me. The main part of our mortgage is always agreed, but they seem to have two differing figures for the second two parts (further advances).

I have been tearing my hair out trying to get to the bottom of this, with various answers from Natwest, none of whcih actually made any sense. I can understand that daily interest calculations and payments onto my acount at the end of the month would make a difference. But.....a £2689 dfference? Over a month? When our payment in total is only £541 anyway?

It turns out, that I have arrears on my account, according to the helpful lady I finally got to speak to today. This arrears dates back to last year. And is at the moment standing at £2689. Odd, isn't it, that I have never had any letters about arrears. Even odder when you think that morgage payment goes out of our Natwest bank account by dd every month, straight to the mortgage account. Or does it?

Turns out that the muppets, somehow or other, have not been allocating the payments correctly. They have had the money, but don't know where they've put it. They do know that the main mortgage is not affected, they think. (oh goody), and they thought they had accidentally been allocating all the money from the other two to that one. But they haven't. Which means that the main mortgage is not overpaid (they don't think), and the two further advances are in arrears, technically. Except they don't exactly know what they have done with our money, presumably it is floating round in a big cyberspace banking pot somewhere labelled " Mug Punters Money Which We Don't Know What To Do With"

So the end result is that they have to completely rework our mortgage account(s) for the last 15 months. Then write and tell us how much we really owe them. (give or take a few thou, I presume).

I have warned them that should the timescale mean that miss out on a decent rate, if the rates change in the meantime, I will be very well naffed off. I am taking screenshots of their mortgage rates on a daily basis to use for ammo just in case.

Rant over.

[scoobydoo]

Re: WendyB (ficticious) Mortgage Arrears

Thats terrible

So if you had not checked then you would not have known.

So say for example you had repaid your mortgage and they had sent you a redemption figure they could have taken back more than they were owed.

No doubt you will be writing a strong letter!

I have never heard of an account being in arrears and them not sending letters

The DD should have had a reference for where the monies were sent.

Hope you get it sorted and that they have not "marked" your credit rating.

[WendyB]

Re: WendyB (ficticious) Mortgage Arrears

Well, the say my credit rating is not "marked", and tbh there was nothing showing on the credit report i got for OH last week.
But although we are "technically" in arrears to the tune of almost 3k, we are not really in arrears, as they well know, and did actually admit to me. But if I'd taken their figures on face value, I could have been paying extra each month when I change the mortgage deal, on the grounds I would have been paying off 3k more than I owe, if they'd used the wrong figures for the new calculation.

God only knows where my money has gone, they have a record of receiving the payments but don't know what they've allocated part of them to. And apparently it's all our fault for having a further advance last April lol.

I am going to wait and see what they say when they have reworked it all, they are going to put it in writing as soon as it's done.

Thank god i persevered and finally got to speak to someone with sense who could actually see that there was a discrepancy and called up the two different screens which showed the differing balances on the accounts. The previous ones only seemed to have access to one screen or the other, but not both. And then they tried to fob me ff with lame brainers such as "it's due to the interest being calculated daily" and becuase you pay at the end of the month you go into credit, then the interest goes on and blah blah blah". Even when I pointed out that to have a 3k difference over a month would either mean I was paying at a ridiculously high rate, (which I'm not, allegedly) or maybe I was paying someone else's motgage as well! Which i could be, for all I know. There's probably some lucky prson out there thinking "Bloody hell, didn't realise I'd got such a good deal from Natwest" cos our mooney is paying off their mortgage!

I'll keep you posted.

[enaid]

Re: WendyB (ficticious) Mortgage Arrears

Wendy can you not ask for a copy of ALL your statements from before the 2 advances up until today?

[TUTTSI]

Re: WendyB (ficticious) Mortgage Arrears

Sounds like someone has really messed up.

I know you will get to the bottom of it and then go for compensation for the agro.

Tutts xx

ps this reminds me of a case with RBS that I have read.

[WendyB]

Re: WendyB (ficticious) Mortgage Arrears

Wendy can you not ask for a copy of ALL your statements from before the 2 advances up until today?

Funnily enough, that is on my list of things to do, but couldn't do it till the boss went out. I have the direct number of the helpful person (Denise) so am going to give her a call.

It really is a major pain in the butt, as i pointed out to her yesterday, there's al sorts of ramifications, especially as one of the scenarios is that I am not allowed to overpay on the main mortgage, so if overpayments have been put against that there will be penalties, which obviously will have to be taken off. Then there's the fact that because of this non-existent arrears, all the daily interest will have been calculated wrongly (on both the further advance accounts). It is a right mess and i am not even going to think about it now until I get their solution, in writing. But I am also going to tell them that I don't just want the answer, I want the workings out as well, so I can see exactly what went wrong and verify they've done it correctly.

As for compensation, I don't really see that i would be entitled to any, anyway, as long as I am retuurned to the position I would be in if they hadn't cocked things up in the first place.

[enaid]

Re: WendyB (ficticious) Mortgage Arrears

As for compensation, I don't really see that i would be entitled to any, anyway, as long as I am retuurned to the position I would be in if they hadn't cocked things up in the first place.

It's not about being entitled to compo IMHO, it is about the fact that these things happen but are often only picked up by the customer and often only in situations like yours.
The situation being you wish to stay a customer of Natwest yet as an existing customer you are not being offered a fairer deal as maybe a new customer on your mortgage renewal.
Also actually knowing how this very serious mistake could have happened and can you be certain it won't happen again.

[WendyB]

Re: WendyB (ficticious) Mortgage Arrears

Right, have spoken to Natwest, they are sending statements. She was very helpful, and agreed with me when I said I wanted to see everything for myself and forgive me if I was a bit sceptical about their ability to get it right considering the mess they'd made of it so far. She has also put a note on the file to say that I want copies of their calculations/workings out when they have reworked the mortgage/furhter advances.

And I am going to start composing a letter of complaint to send off, which I think I will actually wait and send when all this is sorted. So for now it will be a work in progress- any suggestions for inclusion will be gratefully received.

[WendyB]

Re: WendyB (ficticious) Mortgage Arrears

Got the copies of the mortgage statements, haven't really looked into them much but all seems in order up till last year at least. I know this year's is wrong so no point in looking at that cos I have nothing to compare it to till I get the new revised figures. On the question of the revised figures, I rang them on Monday to see how they wore getting on with workings out. And apparently they haven't started on it yet! So from 24th June, when they said they would deal with it urgently, till now, they have done precisely bugger all.

If that's their idea of urgent, God help us if it was classified as non-urgent.

[WendyB]

Re: WendyB (ficticious) Mortgage Arrears

Well what do you know, just when you presume it's safe, it all goes horribly wrong again.

Short (ish)update....

got the re-work of the mortgage done, payments sorted. Then the dd taken mysteriously decreased, rang up to find out why and was told it was due to them having to put us back into the position we were before, and that we'd paid too much interest so the new payment reflected that. So I told them to continue to take the original higher payment then we'd pay it off quicker. Next month the payment went down again!!! Rang up to be told it was because our fixed rate had come to an end, which was correct. Agreed a fixed overpayment with them each month so it would get paid off quicker.

All is well......Wrong!!!

Fast forward to today when I ring the retentions team to see if they can offer us a better deal than we are on, and get all 3 accounts into line with each other. Suddenly it appears that the interest only element has gone up be 5k, whilst on of the the one sub accounts which is on SVR has decreased by 5K! The numpties have done it again!!!! I am so mad I could scream, and am at this moment on hold for Collections in Birmingham to find out exactly why this has happened. No doubt they will have to do yet another re-work because the payments will yet again have been allocated wrongly.

Watch this space.......

[WendyB]

Re: WendyB (ficticious) Mortgage Arrears

Eventually got hold of a guy who actually talked sense and understood what I was on about. It turns out that since they did the rework at the begginning of July, they have not only wrongly allocated 5k to interest only, but also not just 1 but BOTH of my sub accounts are showing as in arrears!!! But the interest only account (which i am not allowed to overpay on) is in credit by exactly the same amount as the other two are in arrears for. So basically the cock up is worse this time than it ever was in the first place. I have pointed out that I find Natwest's incompetence in this matter totally unacceptable although totally expected, given their track record.
Poor bloke is now going to rework the accounts again, from 1st July to date. He has advised me to make an official complaint (which I never did in the first place as it all seemed to be sorted), given me the address to write to, and says he will look into it and call me by the end of the week.

Meanwhile I am now composing a letter. Oh well, gives me something to do I suppose....

[scoobydoo]

Re: WendyB (ficticious) Mortgage Arrears

Frightening that they can make mistakes like this. I agree you should complain. If you did not have your wits about you this could have had serious consequences.

[WendyB]

Re: WendyB (ficticious) Mortgage Arrears

My letter of complaint went 1st class yesterday. Strangely I had a call this morning from an unknown number, which I couldn't answer, it could have been Natwest I suppose, as Andy did say he would call back asap. He also said complaints should be dealt with(or at least acknowledged) within 48 hours, so we'll see. I have set the scene as follows

"I must point out that due to Natwest's incompetence we have no doubt missed out on various more advantageous mortgage deals which in turn has disadvantaged us financially in the longer term"
"Please be advised that as soon as this mess is sorted out, if ever, we will be looking to move our mortgage to another provider"
"Furthermore, we would request recompense for the considerable stress which this on-going saga has caused, as well as the cost of countless telephone calls and the not inconsiderable amount of time I have had to devote to sorting this matter out, in addition to us no doubt being financially disadvantaged in the long term......"

however my favourite bit was "Imagine my surprise, in fact total disbelief is more descriptive, to find that........."

Let's see what they come back with. Only thing i forgot to put in my letter was ref to the Ombudsman. I'll save that for later, shall I lol.

[veilside01702]

Re: WendyB (ficticious) Mortgage Arrears

Hi Wendy, I hope you are recording the times, dates, names for all these phone calls?
If you have a way of recording the calls?
All you need to do is tell them " I may record these calls for training or quality control purposes".....lol

We had this with C&G in 2005 and still have arrears due to their C*ckup..... sorry mistakes....
Only found out it wasn't sorted in 2008 when we went for payment break..... but person who had dealt with this had left in 2006, so no record or person to prove it....

Get every move they offer you by phone written down in a daily diary and ask for what they have said in writing......
Trust me..... you will need to prove it all.......

If you need anything..... let me know if I can help....
Russ

[WendyB]

Re: WendyB (ficticious) Mortgage Arrears

Well this is sort of a record of what i do and when, isn't it? Anyway, rang them on Tuesday to see what was happening as I'd had no reply to my letter of complaint. And guess what? There was nothing on file. Had a mini-rant and extracted a fax number from the chap I spoke to and a promise that he would personally take my fax to the Mortgage complaints dept. So I duly faxed a copy of my complaint letter over. When I got home last night there was a letter acknowledging my complaint and saying they will contact me within ten working days with a full response. And a proper signature and a direct number for the signature. The signature was the same bloke who sorted it out when they put a late payment marker on our record a couple of years ago, so hopefully he will be able to sort this out too. As I recall he was the one who I managed to get £100 compensation out of.....well I hope he's got deeper pockets for this time lol.

Russ we haven't really got any arrears, it's just their stupid mistakes which are making us look like there's arrears because it'sa been incorrectly allocated, but nonethless I want it sorting once and for all.