Sorry Noted x

I made that payment on 13th Feb, then it all went down hill.

This is what I have said in my email of complaint: On 29th November 2023 I took out a loan of £5000 with you. Unfortunately very early into 2024 I have found myself in financial difficulty and I contacted you on 13th February 2024 asking if there was any way I could extend the length of my loan to 36 months and I fully explained why I was requesting this and asked for your help. I again contacted you on 7th March 2024 to advise you of a change in my circumstances which resulted in me having to take out a DMP and asking you to confirm that the direct debit had been cancelled. You would have also received confirmation of this DMP from StepChange but you did not acknowledge receipt of my email. I have now therefore fallen behind on several of my debts, yours included, and as a result you have lodged a Cifas marker against my name for "evasion of payment", which has resulted in me having to change banks, which has been an extremely difficult process because of the Cifas marker. I do not feel you have been fair or given me the opportunity to fully explain my situation to you before you lodged the marker against my name. I cannot stress to you enough how much this has affected my mental health. I am having trouble sleeping and my existing health condition has been exacerbated by all of this. What I would like you to do is to please remove the Cifas marker and let me make arrangements to pay the loan back through a DMP. If you fail to resolve my complaint within 8 weeks, or if matters are not settled to my satisfaction, I will have no alternative but to refer my complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service. I look forward to hearing from you. Yours faithfully, Should I send something along those lines to the CEO?

That "oh dear" doesn't sound good

Thank you fkofilee First question: what do I do if Monzo close my account? I need an account but no one will touch me with this marker against me. Is there anywhere/any other option that I have if Monzo close my account? MCB is My Community Bank? Yes What Category of Marker do you have? This is what it says on the Cifas SAR: Application date: 07 December 2023 Date recorded: 09 April 2024 Expiry date: 09 April 2030 Cifas Case Identifier: 15435315 Product relating to the application, proposal, account or facility: Personal Loan – Unsecured Facility: Granted Case type: Misuse of facility Reason(s) for filing: Evasion of payment Financial Loss Value of Loss: £5000.00 When did you raise the complaint? Last night via email Do you have Correspondence / Audit Trails of communications showing that you were in severe financial strain due to an event AFTER you took the loan? I can prove that I had to buy a new washing machine, I have my pay slips showing the emergency tax code and a letter from the tax office after I had spoken with them to get it corrected and of course I can get a copy of my vet bill. And all of this was in the first 2-3 months of 2024. I panicked. Stupid I know and as you say, I have learned the hard way and I am not in any way denying anything that I have done wrong, but it just feels a bit unfair. It is what it is I guess and if I have to have it on me forever then so be it. I am just so worried about the bank situation

I have recently found myself in financial difficulties and with the help of forum members in another thread regarding this, I think I can get myself sorted. My query here is how to deal with a Cifas marker that has been logged against me by one of my creditors for "evasion of payment". Admittedly yes I did get a £5000 loan with them and have not paid any payment but at the start of the year, which is when the loan landed, I realised I was going to be struggling to repay that and other debts and I contacted MCB to ask if there was any way I could extend the loan from 24 months to 36 months. I explained my situation and that I was going with a DMP and asked them if they could help me with this. They did not reply. I then emailed them again a month later explaining that my DMP was going ahead and could they confirm that the direct debit was indeed cancelled. Again, they did not reply. The DMP fell apart and so did everything else thereafter. My bank withdrew my overdraft and said I could not stay with them (I thought initially that it was because of the DMP) so I opened another account (Starling) and set up all my direct debits etc with the new bank. A month into being with the new bank, they contacted me and said they were closing my account in three months. So I started applying for other basic accounts and every single one of them either refused or revoked. Through the help in the other thread, I requested a SAR from Cifas and discovered that I have this marker against my name for "evasion of payment". I have logged a complaint with MCB on the advice of other forum members, but my query really is do you think the marker is fair given that I did ask them for help and I did explain that I was going to be struggling financially to repay the loan over the original two years, and is there any way that I can get it removed? I fully admit that I have yet to make a payment to them and I suppose in my naivety and panic I thought if I emailed them early on they could extend the loan and help me out, but they didn't even reply I did manage to open an account with Monzo before the marker was in place, but I am very concerned that if Monzo do what Starling did, I will have no bank account to pay my bills or get my wages paid into. Realistically based on the information I have given here, what do you think my chances are of getting this marker removed? Any help/advice on this would be greatly appreciated x

I've had a text and email from MCB: "Dear XXXXX Please contact us today. Your payment has not been brought up to date and we would like to discuss your account with you as a matter of urgency. Our telephone number is 02039236888" Early investigations confirm you are resident at the above address. Despite this, we have not managed to speak to you about your now, seriously overdue debt. We are now instructing our external debt collectors to contact you directly in relation to your loan account. If you want to avoid this course of action, contact us today on 0203 923 6888"

Will check back in when the SAR from MCB is back and get advice on how to raise the formal complaint and what to say x

Should I have tried harder with them? I know I'm sounding like a total dumbass here, this is all just so alien to me and I feel bad a) for being fraudulent and b) for getting myself into this mess in the first place! Feel free to give me a virtual slap LOL

Thanks lolerz, I'm doing the SAR now and will post it tomorrow. To the very best of my knowledge I've never done anything fraudulent in my life! How can I not pay them back though, I do owe the money But let's face it, my situation can't get much worse surely!

What are they going to tell me different to what the Cifas people have told me? Is it worth contacting them to tell them I'm struggling and hoping to set up a DMP soon? Or no? Just SAR?

Good evening all, I have had an email back from Cifas regarding my SAR. It turns out that there is a marker against me and it was made by MY COMMUNITY BANK for the £5,000. I took out, stating: "Misuse of facility – opening an account, insurance policy, or other facility for a fraudulent purpose or the fraudulent misuse of an account, policy, or facility; or the fraudulent misuse of insurance policy documentation" I did email them on 7th March and told them I was struggling and was taking out a DMP (which was the StepChange DMP) and asked them to confirm the direct debit was cancelled but they just emailed back saying "In order to change your direct debit details, you will need to contact our service team on 0800 289 120." So what do I do now? It looks like I'm pretty screwed.

Thank you dx. I consider myself well and truly told x

Hi It isn't working itself out though, it's just getting worse I am a fish out of water here. Do you know why this is happening and what is happening?

I think I might have had a CCJ but it was way longer than 7 years ago and I have been able to apply and get loans, credit cards etc. I have been pretty fine with my finances until now, until this mess I managed to get myself into this year There is nothing showing on the TransUnion credit report about an old CCJ. Is there another place I can look to see if there was one and if so how long ago? I have signed up to TransUnion and on there it says (in Search History): ORGANISATION PURPOSE DATE Transunion Consumer Id Check (Ml) Identity Check for Credit 15 Apr 2024 Nationwide Building Society (Sr,Tac,Ct,Cval,R) Nationwide Building Society Bav (Cval Ml) Anti-Money Laundering 11 Apr 2024 Monzo Bank (Cosmos, Cr, Sa, Ar, Ct Batch) Monzo Bank Limited 2 (Cosmos Ar) AF 10 Apr 2024 Monzo Bank (Cosmos, Cr, Sa, Ar, Ct Batch) Monzo Bank Limited 2 (Cosmos Cr Bsb) Quotation Search 10 April 2024 I think AF means a financial association with someone or something, but I have just read that that could be something as simple as sharing an address with someone (which I do). Public Information Details of any Bankruptcies, Insolvencies or Court Judgments that are in your name in relation to settlements of money. Bankruptcies and Insolvencies You do not have any Bankruptcies or Insolvencies on your credit report. Judgments You do not have any Judgments on your credit report. There are no Cifas markers registered against you. You do not have any Notices of Correction on your credit report. Does any of this make sense? I don't mean the information I have provided above, I mean why I am being rejected by every bank I have applied for, except Monzo (so far) Every loan I have ever taken out has been paid and settled on time, I have never missed payments on things. The only things I have outstanding at the moment are the ones I listed at the start of this thread when I completed the budget planner.

Starling came back to me and said they have made some changes on my account and I should now be able to use the 'switch' option. I have a Monzo account which I opened when I opened the Starling account, but I have not used it as yet because I was happy with Starling. I feel like I am seriously running out of options. If Monzo do the same as Startling and let me set up all my direct debits and standing orders etc and then tell me they're closing my account in so many months, what do I do then? Where do I get a bank account? I have applied to Nationwide, got the account set up and all the details etc. Then today received an email saying sorry they were not going ahead with the account and it would be closed today. They didn't give me the option of a super basic account. I have tried RBS and Co-op too and they did and said the same. I feel like a leper or something. I have only defaulted on my loans one month. It hasn't even shown up on my credit report yet, but these knock backs are definitely to do with my credit score because RBS said " Unfortunately, having made those checks we are unable to proceed with opening your account at this stage." I don't know what to do. I did open a Co-operative account and have all the details and even a debit card, but when I'm trying to register for online/mobile banking it is just saying for security reasons the account is locked and to call this number, which I managed to get through to the other day after holding for an hour. I am on hold again now but with what's happened with Nationwide and RBS, I am not feeling particularly optimistic. Any advice on where to go or what to do next? x

I have been in touch with Starling this morning, explained that they want to close my account but have rejected the switch to my new account and the lady I was talking with said she couldn't see any reason why the switch would've been rejected and she will look into it asap. My main concern at the moment is that I change all of my direct debits etc over and then the same thing happens. I've heard Nationwide are a good bank for people with poor credit scores, so I'm looking into opening a basic account with them. What a huge mess this is turning out to be

Just had a message off Monzo saying starling have refused the switch request. What is happening here? I'm super concerned right now :(

This is the message I got from Starling (thank you @lolerzfor helping me find it in the app x) Hello M, We regularly review our customers' information to help keep Starling and our customers safe. After reviewing your information, we're sorry to say that we're no longer able to offer you a bank account. Because of this, we'll need to close your account on 09/07/2024. Why we're doing this There are several reasons why we might need to close an account. To inform our decisions, we review information from the credit reference agencies and fraud prevention agencies we've listed below. During our latest review, we found some information that concerns us. You're entitled to ask for a copy of the personal information held by these agencies blah blah blah What happens now Under the terms of your account, we can close your bank account by giving you 60 days' notice in writing. In this case, we're extending it to 90 days. You'll now need to find another bank account with a different bank. Please make sure there is no money left in your Starling account by 09/07/2024. If there is still money left after this date, we'll move it to a holding account and you'll need to get in touch if you want to claim it. If you have an overdraft blah blah blah (I don't have an overdraft) We understand the decision to close your account is disappointing, and we're sorry about that. If we can help with anything else, let us know. Thank you. That sounds ominous

I don't have an overdraft with Starling, I didn't have (or want) the option and my account is well in credit. As there is no overdraft should I use the switch service? It just sounds so much easier than me having to do them all manually again.

I got a text notifying me of a customer service message in the app, so I opened the app and saw the message but it isn't there when I re-opened the app. I am not sure if it was a message or a notification sorry Should I use the Monzo account and use the Switch feature to get all my direct debits, standing orders, wages etc moved in time for May? My concern is that Monzo do the same as Starling and I find myself with no bank account and no one accepting me.

I can't find the message now in the app for some reason, but it said something along the lines of it checks accounts from time to time and something about credit check agencies and unfortunately they are closing my account in 90 days and to make sure there is no money in my account by that time Is this a problem I am going to have every time I open an account with someone new? I've had all my direct debits and standing orders changed over to Starling, which was a massive ball ache doing it manually. When I was in panic mode over the Santander issue I applied for Starling, Monzo and Co-op. They all accepted me and gave me an account but I chose the Starling one (which I actually really like too). If anyone knows how I find the customer service message in the Starling app please let me know and I'll copy the message to here. I can't see any option in the app though for messages.

I have had a message from Starling Bank saying they are going to close my account on 09/07/2024.

Doh, sorry And thank you