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Hi,
I stumbled across the forum whilst trying to find out a bit more about an extremely stressful situation that quite literally landed on my doorstep (in the form of a debt collection letter) just before Xmas. Apologies in advance for the essay, and sorry if this has been posted to the wrong section.......:tinysmile_aha_t:
The debt apparently relates to an outstanding balance of £479.29 on a Santander account that I had actually requested to be closed in October 2011. It was a joint account held my myself and my ex partner with the then Alliance and Leicester, and when we split in Sept 2011, I cancelled all DDs, cut up our debit cards and requested that the zero balance account be closed. I then moved back to my parents house in my home town in October 2011, and it's where I've been ever since. It being over 3 years ago, I don't recall whether I left a forwarding address.
I received a letter from Santander on 20/11/14, telling me that as of 15/10/14, my debt had been sold to Hoist Portfolio Holding 2 Limited, and that I was to deal with Robinson Way Limited to arrange immediate repayment. Obviously this came as a huge shock to say the very least. I called Robinson Way immediately on receipt of the letter to explain the situation, and that I wanted to dispute the claim until I knew exactly what it related to. They advised me that a hold would be placed on the debt until full details of the charges had been obtained from Hoist. This was on 24/11/14, and I'm still yet to receive any information (despite a further 3 phone calls since then).
To try and speed things up a bit I called Santander to speak to somebody in their Collections dept to see if they could tell me what the transactions relate to.....apparently there were no transactions or debits on the account carried out by either of us (yeah, because neither of us were using it as we thought it was closed like we had asked it to be, duh!!) but that we'd been charged a £5 'Underfunding Fee' in April 2012, which had taken the account into overdraft, and because of this, they had then added a £45 'Unarranged Order Fee' on top, and continued to apply both of these charges, monthly, until December 2012.
Apparently, the bank had arranged for a company to try and trace me, which they supposedly did in February 2013, but I received no letters or telephone calls from them or any company whatsoever about the debt. I checked my credit report through Experian at the weekend, and it has pretty well been decimated by the default slapped on there by Hoist. I haven't applied for any credit or a mortgage in the past 3 years, have one credit card with a very low balance which I pay off regularly and have an otherwise spotless credit history, therefore hadn't had any reason to check my report during this time. After worrying myself silly about it all weekend I decided that I'd call and pay it off this morning, in the hope that I could continue to contest the charges and lodge a formal complaint, whilst in the background, the default would disappear from my credit report once Hoist update their records in 1-2 months time. However, after looking around on here and the MSE forum about the default staying on there for 6 years regardless of whether the debt is settled or not, I'm finding it all even more upsetting as I'm now out of pocket and it looks like my credit rating is in tatters regardless.
I sent letters to Santander, Hoist and Robinson Way today asking for a full list of transactions on the account from Jan 11, along with all related correspondence sent to me since that date. Once I've got this info, I plan to lodge a formal complaint and potentially escalate it to the Financial Ombudsman.
I'm looking for some advice or guidance from anybody out there who's had something similar happen to them. Do I have a leg to stand on with regards to disputing this? Have I shot myself in the foot by paying it, when the default will sit on my credit report for 4 1/2 more years regardless? Can Hoist apply the default with no prior warning? Under what circumstances could the default be removed, and how can I go about it? It seems so unfair that I now have to suffer the consequences of an admin error made by A&L that could potentially have a hugely detrimental impact on my financial future. All for a sum made up entirely of bank charges that I've had no notification of or chance to respond to. Hugely worried and stressed by it all to say the least.
Thanks in advance for any help.
I stumbled across the forum whilst trying to find out a bit more about an extremely stressful situation that quite literally landed on my doorstep (in the form of a debt collection letter) just before Xmas. Apologies in advance for the essay, and sorry if this has been posted to the wrong section.......:tinysmile_aha_t:
The debt apparently relates to an outstanding balance of £479.29 on a Santander account that I had actually requested to be closed in October 2011. It was a joint account held my myself and my ex partner with the then Alliance and Leicester, and when we split in Sept 2011, I cancelled all DDs, cut up our debit cards and requested that the zero balance account be closed. I then moved back to my parents house in my home town in October 2011, and it's where I've been ever since. It being over 3 years ago, I don't recall whether I left a forwarding address.
I received a letter from Santander on 20/11/14, telling me that as of 15/10/14, my debt had been sold to Hoist Portfolio Holding 2 Limited, and that I was to deal with Robinson Way Limited to arrange immediate repayment. Obviously this came as a huge shock to say the very least. I called Robinson Way immediately on receipt of the letter to explain the situation, and that I wanted to dispute the claim until I knew exactly what it related to. They advised me that a hold would be placed on the debt until full details of the charges had been obtained from Hoist. This was on 24/11/14, and I'm still yet to receive any information (despite a further 3 phone calls since then).
To try and speed things up a bit I called Santander to speak to somebody in their Collections dept to see if they could tell me what the transactions relate to.....apparently there were no transactions or debits on the account carried out by either of us (yeah, because neither of us were using it as we thought it was closed like we had asked it to be, duh!!) but that we'd been charged a £5 'Underfunding Fee' in April 2012, which had taken the account into overdraft, and because of this, they had then added a £45 'Unarranged Order Fee' on top, and continued to apply both of these charges, monthly, until December 2012.
Apparently, the bank had arranged for a company to try and trace me, which they supposedly did in February 2013, but I received no letters or telephone calls from them or any company whatsoever about the debt. I checked my credit report through Experian at the weekend, and it has pretty well been decimated by the default slapped on there by Hoist. I haven't applied for any credit or a mortgage in the past 3 years, have one credit card with a very low balance which I pay off regularly and have an otherwise spotless credit history, therefore hadn't had any reason to check my report during this time. After worrying myself silly about it all weekend I decided that I'd call and pay it off this morning, in the hope that I could continue to contest the charges and lodge a formal complaint, whilst in the background, the default would disappear from my credit report once Hoist update their records in 1-2 months time. However, after looking around on here and the MSE forum about the default staying on there for 6 years regardless of whether the debt is settled or not, I'm finding it all even more upsetting as I'm now out of pocket and it looks like my credit rating is in tatters regardless.
I sent letters to Santander, Hoist and Robinson Way today asking for a full list of transactions on the account from Jan 11, along with all related correspondence sent to me since that date. Once I've got this info, I plan to lodge a formal complaint and potentially escalate it to the Financial Ombudsman.
I'm looking for some advice or guidance from anybody out there who's had something similar happen to them. Do I have a leg to stand on with regards to disputing this? Have I shot myself in the foot by paying it, when the default will sit on my credit report for 4 1/2 more years regardless? Can Hoist apply the default with no prior warning? Under what circumstances could the default be removed, and how can I go about it? It seems so unfair that I now have to suffer the consequences of an admin error made by A&L that could potentially have a hugely detrimental impact on my financial future. All for a sum made up entirely of bank charges that I've had no notification of or chance to respond to. Hugely worried and stressed by it all to say the least.
Thanks in advance for any help.
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