NRAM Mortgage Error

[colint1960]

I am having a huge ongoing problem with NRAM,(formerly Northern Rock) in summary I have an interest only mortgae and sent an cheque to them from a matured endowment policy and asked them to apportion this to the interest only part of my mortgae account. However they decided to pay off two loans associated with my mortgage account which I simply wanted to continue for the remainder of the term. To cust a long story short, despite many many calls, they continued to send letters (some from their Debt Management) advising that I was short of the amount and despite the fact that every time I called I was assured to ignore these as an investigation was ongoing. This appeared to be cleared up but I have then had my credit card limit reduced, so clearly they have caused me a problem through no fault of my own, albeit they tell me any default has now been removed from credit reference agencies.
I complained by letter and asked for mortgage statements as I still had no information relating to the payments and compensation. After 8 weeks, received a response, with no statements and no compensation. Eventaully received these and was appalled to learn that although the mortgage part is correct, the loans are now interest only (!!) and I am not paying the correct amount. It is an unbelievable sutuation and sums up there lack of procedures, professionalism and incompetence. My question is the Ombudsman take up to 9 months to reslove a query, is it worth speaking to a Solicitor to claim compensation for defamation etc etc as clearly I appear to be hitting a brick wall after some 6 months!!