Confused over action to take on outstanding debt

[MegDZ]

Hi guys

I have a Natwest credit card account that I currently owe £4,863.47. They registered a default in December 2009 when the arrears on the account were £81. I had asked them (and all my other creditors) to accept token payments in this case of £70 as my hubby had lost his job etc. All other creditors agreed including MBNA who so far has treated me fantastically well although I owe them £16k - was £20k!).

I have two queries really. My account was opened in 1997 and I had a perfect record with them until 2008 when our financial problems began. I had a few late payment or less than full min payments and incurred several charges of £12. The statements I can find show these as amounting to over £120 over a year and a half. Usually because the shortfall in minimum payment was rolled over to the next month and I wouldnt be able to afford the whole lot. Some months I had two charges, one for being late and one for not paying the full mimimum payment.

So it would seem that my arrears at the time of the default were charges - does that make a difference to the default being registered i.e. can I get it removed?

But more importantly I have been paying back the payments they ask for currently £120 every month. The debt in 2009 at date of default was £6723.20 (their letter telling me they were issuing a default was in response to my income and expenditure statement and request for breathing space and payments of £70 per month).

Today I received a letter saying that "as I had failed to respond to the banks previous demands, we have no alternative but to commence further proceedings for the recovery of the outstanding balance . We urge you to contact us on phone number". I did to be told that the letter had been sent by mistake! The girl said that payments had been recieved every month since the default was issued and charges and interest frozen in December 2009.

I am now seriously annoyed and stressed. Today, I used creditexpert to check my credit file and this is the only default I have. The other credit card companies all have arrangement to pay down on my file and all are up to date.

I am trying to repay our debts as we did spend the money (we stupidly used credit cards to pay our mortgage when husband was out of work as we didnt think it would take him 9 months to find a job) - its hard work but we are managing just about and then we get a letter like that.

So reading this forum I think I should be asking for a refund of charges but I am not sure where to start. Do I send them this letter although its a template dated in 2007 or is there a more up to date template somewhere?

Any help or pointers would be most appreciated.
Thank you

Meg

ps I am really sorry if I have missed somewhere obvious where it tells you what to do. I don't want to make any mistakes and give them more ammunition against me.

[di30]

Re: Confused over action to take on outstanding debt

Hi and welcome to LB

I'm sure someone will be along soon to give the right advice and the right direction on where to take this.

May I ask though if you have tried getting in touch with a free debt organisation who will act on your behalf?

I am though sorry to hear of your situation and have been there myself, thankfully resolved for the time being and hope it stays that way.

But if you have not done so yet, I would contact a free debt organisation and they should be able to help you through this, there are, for example the National Debtline, the CCCS, try googling them and they will come up.

What I would like to mention though is, that ours was Lloyds TSB.

So what we did.........

We wrote to them, sent them a copy of the monthly expenditure, of the incomings, ongoings, (my hubby then lost his job) and in time when the mortgage insurance came to its limit, we had tried requesting for payment booklets to pay monthly token payments for the time being on the unsecured loan, as the mortgage being more of an urgent matter to deal with, or until the position improved, but each time was no. We also requested they hold their horses on the interest/charges, they refused time and time again.

So in time the interest/charges kept rising.
I had then decided to write to them and tell them we don't think they were being fair or were not treating us very fairly, as we had been long term customers with them and we expected they should have been more sympathetic, and requested they consider the token payments because the mortgage was a matter of urgency to deal with first.
I also informed them that this case will be forwarded to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) if they don't resolve, because we cannot pay what we didn't have.
They again refused, so I made a complaint to the FOS under the hardship criteria, it was also fast tracked as requested as well, due to hardship and health reasons.
In time the Adjudicator upheld in our favour, they said the bank was to freeze the interest/charges and they were to refund them back to the account to bring down the debt owed, and compensate further redress for distress and inconvenience caused. That was paid to us by cheque.
The FOS also stated that the charges would not have been so high if the bank agreed and not let it go on so long, so basically this could have been avoided.

I do hope your case is resolved soon, but just thought I would give my output on my position at the time.

Good luck.

[MegDZ]

Re: Confused over action to take on outstanding debt

Hi Dizzy Di

Thank you for answering my post :-)

When my husband originally lost his job, my mum was dying of breast cancer and was based in another country so I spent most of my time with her. I wasn't paying enough attention to what was going on to be honest . I did contact payplan and they said to offer everyone £1 but we thought that was too low. Thats the real kicker in this - we were trying to treat everyone fairly.

But that was all nearly two years ago. We are now managing (just about!) to keep up with the payments on everything. That is why this letter today really annoyed me but then it gave me the kick I needed to start looking for help and I found here which looks like a great place but loads of info to take in. I didnt know that you could reclaim the £12 charge - I thought it was only £25 and above and I dont think we had many of those although I am now going to check lol.

I am thinking that over the 14 years I held this account I may have incurred quite a few £12 charges in the last few years and maybe the odd one in the early "good" years which could reduce the balance a bit and get us paid off sooner. I would really like to get rid of the default too as we want to move to a cheaper area with hopefully a lower mortgage away from the big smoke. we have two kids that need a decent school. That wont be possible with a messed up credit file.

[di30]

Re: Confused over action to take on outstanding debt

Hi Dizzy Di

Thank you for answering my post :-)

When my husband originally lost his job, my mum was dying of breast cancer and was based in another country so I spent most of my time with her. I wasn't paying enough attention to what was going on to be honest . I did contact payplan and they said to offer everyone £1 but we thought that was too low. Thats the real kicker in this - we were trying to treat everyone fairly.

But that was all nearly two years ago. We are now managing (just about!) to keep up with the payments on everything. That is why this letter today really annoyed me but then it gave me the kick I needed to start looking for help and I found here which looks like a great place but loads of info to take in. I didnt know that you could reclaim the £12 charge - I thought it was only £25 and above and I dont think we had many of those although I am now going to check lol.

I am thinking that over the 14 years I held this account I may have incurred quite a few £12 charges in the last few years and maybe the odd one in the early "good" years which could reduce the balance a bit and get us paid off sooner. I would really like to get rid of the default too as we want to move to a cheaper area with hopefully a lower mortgage away from the big smoke. we have two kids that need a decent school. That wont be possible with a messed up credit file.

Your very welcome hun,

Blimey you've had a time of it, I know how you feel, both my mum and one of my youngest sisters went through what your mum did at the same time as each other, then my dad a few months on with prostate cancer, and I can truly understand the worry you went through, it can take things off track with no fault of your own.
I do hope your mum is ok now bless.

I can't see why you don't go for it, the charges they all add up.
However, I am more on the reclaiming of PPI insurance, but wanted to share my experience with you because you feel like your not getting anywhere.

And I'm sure you will get the right advice on how to make a reclaim on the charges if not tonight then tomorrow I expect.

Don't take no messing from any bank though, if they deal with your issue at an earlier stage when you ask for help, then all this stress could have been avoided, so if your not happy about the way you've been treated, make that complaint, they have a duty to treat customers fairly. x

[MegDZ]

Re: Confused over action to take on outstanding debt

Your very welcome hun,

Blimey you've had a time of it, I know how you feel, both my mum and one of my youngest sisters went through what your mum did at the same time as each other, then my dad a few months on with prostate cancer, and I can truly understand the worry you went through, it can take things off track with no fault of your own.
I do hope your mum is ok now bless.

I can't see why you don't go for it, the charges they all add up.
However, I am more on the reclaiming of PPI insurance, but wanted to share my experience with you because you feel like your not getting anywhere.

And I'm sure you will get the right advice on how to make a reclaim on the charges if not tonight then tomorrow I expect.

Don't take no messing from any bank though, if they deal with your issue at an earlier stage when you ask for help, then all this stress could have been avoided, so if your not happy about the way you've been treated, make that complaint, they have a duty to treat customers fairly. x

Thank you very much Di - you are a lovely lady and I am so glad your parents and your sister beat cancer. Unfortunately my mum died - she had the second most agressive kind and fought for over 13 years but her energy ran out. But although I miss her every day I consider myself very lucky. She was the most positive person I knew and my Dad is wonderful so I have had more luck than most.

Take care of you and thank you so much for your help. Thankfully (maybe!) we never took out ppi so that is not an avenue open to us. But yeah it makes me annoyed that I asked for help after being a client for over 11 year at the time and with a fantastic record and they defaulted me for £81. But then there is no point getting angry. I just need to now try to get back all the charges I paid to help get me to being debt free.

[MegDZ]

Sar arrived, incomplete and no application form

Hi guys

I have posted this on another forum but given you are legal eagles was wondering if anyone could help.

I got my SAR from Natwest and it is totally incomplete.

1) They only gave me copy statements going back to 2005 when the account was opened in 1997.

2) the log of phone calls and letters sent only went back to 2010.

3) no application form as they say they dont have one

4) If I want phone transcripts I have to give them the dates of the calls

5) no terms and conditions as they say they are outside of the Data Protection Act

6) no list of charges


They are still within the 40 days so I sent them back a letter saying the information was incomplete but anyone know what my next step would be?

I don't deny the debt but I do think the default was wrong and want it taken off my credit file. I intend paying the money back. The log they sent talks about letters I havent received so their records seem a bit off.

But now I have started the SAR stuff I am a bit confused as to what I do next.

Thanks for your help