I just didn't expect to end up massively out of pocket for something that is not my fault If his insurer (I say "his" it is actually fleet insurance as it was a company owned lorry that hit me) refuse to help me, then I will pursue the company who the vehicle belonged to through the courts if necessary. I have tried to speak with solicitors but it seems, unless you are paralysed or suffered an amputation as a result of the accident they don't care. I just feel so lonely in this whole thing, the various insurers / finance company are looking after their own interests but there is nobody to look after mine.

I have been thinking about this overnight.... Why should I be claiming on my GAP insurance policy at all? The policy was taken out for my piece of mind and not for his insurers benefit! If it was my fault and I wrote the car off then I would, of course, claim on it. But I can't help but think that me claiming on my own gap policy is the equivalent of a fault claim, as in... yes the insurance will pay out but I then need to suffer the consequences of making a claim (another 11 months of premiums to pay, on a policy that I can no longer claim on)

The trouble is the GAP insurer will only be covering the vehicle element of the finance shortfall, I calculate about 200 quid. Yet I need to pay £450 in premiums. Not be mention that I also need to take out a further GAP policy on my replacement vehicle. I decided yesterday to write a letter to his insurers directly, so just waiting on a response on that.

I have just spoken to the GAP insurer, who inform me that I still need to carry on paying the premiums after the claim, even though I cannot claim on the GAP policy again. So that's another £450 flushed down the toilet

Thank you, to be honest, had the accident occurred 2-3 years down the line then I would not be seeking to recover the losses I have suffered. But the fact that I have paid considerable money for warranties and protections which became null and void only 1 month after purchase is to me completely unacceptable.

Thank you for your advice, I have "Tesco Legal Guard" as part of the motor insurance policy and will be giving them a call this morning. With regards to claiming back my finance payments, I have spoken with the finance company yesterday and they inform me that unless the balance is settled by the 29th April, I will be required to make another months payment. So essentially I have paid £478 in 2 montly payments for 1 month & 1 weeks usage! I see your point in that it may be difficult to claim that I have not had any use of the car between 2/3/16 and 8/4/16. However, my argument is that I purchased a vehicle on HP in order to own it at the end of the term. If I wanted to flush my money down the toilet hiring a car then I would have gone to Hertz I also, stupidly in hindsight had some "extras", extended warranty, safeguard protection etc... which total £678 added onto the car purchase and so these are within the financed amount. The problem is reading the small print of my GAP policy, they will only pay the shortfall for the vehicle and not any extras! So to sum it all up, I had use of my car for 1 month & 1 week and it has cost me so far.... DEPOSIT: £300 1ST MONTHLY PAYMENT: £239 2ND MONTHLY PAYMENT: £239 UNINSURED EXTRAS ADDED TO FINANCE: £679 TOTAL: £1,457 or put it another way £40 per day of usage! I cannot believe what a mess this has become, once the GAP insurer has filled the gap for the vehicle portion of the finance I am going to still be left with a shortfall of £679 excluding interest! which of course the finance company want settling immediately. I then need to find another £300 deposit to put down on another car. We are also a 1 car family, and I know the insurer is going to want the hire car back once they have sent their portion of the settlement to the finance company, but we need a car in order to find a replacement car which I can not do until both the GAP insurer has settled and I have somehow paid off any remaining shortfall myself. I am so stressed and frustrated with the whole thing, especially as the other party was completely responsible for the accident and have admitted 100% liability. His vehicle (a small lorry) suffered relativley minor damage and he is probably all fixed up and back on the road now, completley oblivious to the situation he has placed me in.

Hi All, I will set the scene with a brief timeline of events.... 1. Purchased a 62 plate car for 10k on a HP agreement with a £300 deposit, picked the car up from the dealers on the 2nd March 2016. 2. I made the first payment on the HP agreement on the 2nd April 2016. 3. On the 8th April 2016, the car was written off in an accident. The other party pleaded no contest and their insurers have admitted full liability for the claim. I spoke with my finance company yesterday after receiving a letter from my insurer declaring the car a write off. Naturally as the legal owner of the vehicle, the finance company are insisting that they deal with the insurers themselves. I fully expect however that the finance company will be acting solely in their own interests and not mine. I should also state that I have GAP insurance so I am not bothered about clearing the existing finance, but what does bother me is that it leaves me personally out of pocket, I believe (and this is where I need advice) that I should be able to claim.... 1. My £300 deposit which was paid to the dealer at the start of March. 2. As mentioned above, I paid my monthly installment at the start of the month and only had 7 days use out of the car before the accident, so I believe I should be able to claim at least part of this back? 3. My next payment is due on the 1st May, I am concerned that if things don't move swiftly and the finance isn't settled before the end of this month then I will end up paying another month's payment for a car that I no longer have the use of! My main question is... what route should I take to attempt to claim back these losses?? Should I wait for the insurer and finance company to conclude the settlement of the finance first? I am thinking of waiting for the dust to settle and then issuing a court claim to the other driver for any remaining losses, can I do this?? I am concerned that once the finance company has settled with the insurer then that will prevent any further claims being made?? Many thanks for any assistance given.

Hi All, We are moving home at the end of next week and have begun the process of transferring utilities etc.. We have been customers of NPower for some 8 years and have always had a credit meter for both gas & electric which have been paid via monthly DD. Today we phoned NPower to notify them that we were moving and that we wished to remain customers of theirs. The property we have purchased is already supplied by NPower and presently has credit meters fitted so we expected no issues. NPower ran a credit check and have informed us that our only options are: a) Have prepayment meters fitted. b) Place a security deposit of £200 per fuel to be held for 12mths and continue to pay by direct debit. Admittedly our credit files are not squeaky clean (though clean enough to obtain a mortgage) but we do not see why after 8 years of customer loyalty we should have to either have prepayment meters fitted or pay a substantial security deposit. Although we could switch providers, we are concerned that the whole industry credit checks and we would essentially find ourselves in the same position. We are concerned that time is ticking fast as we are due to move into our new home next Friday, so we may not have time to sort prior to our move date, which raises another question.... This may sound stupid but we are first time buyers so please bear with us... the property we are moving into has working electricity and gas obviously not looking to defraud but is it the case that electricity/gas cannot be used until a provider is sorted? Any help/advice is greatly received.

I am pleased to say that we have just received our formal mortgage offer from the lender.

How can I change the title of the thread, or will a mod do it? to indicate success.

Yes that was the primary goal and it has been achieved. But obviously if my mortgage is still declined after appeal and it is solely due to what Halifax has done, then I will be taking the matter further as I would be considerably out of pocket if this house sale falls through.

After the decline my broker got on the phone to the business development manager, and from what I understand to be a rather lengthy conversation the lender has agreed to reassess the case so we are not out of the woods yet but not flat on our faces as we were a few days ago either. It was explicitly mentioned within my letter to Halifax that our mortgage had been declined and that we were seeking to appeal it with the lender. I made it clear that any compensation claim would follow and be determined based upon the success or failure of that appeal. I stated that if the lender still determines after appeal that they are unable to provide the mortgage and it can be demonstrated that it was solely due to Halifax's default placement then the compensation claim would likely be substantial. I won't be issuing a full response / acceptance of compensation until I know where I am with the mortgage lender.

Thanks I am in a good mood so rep given ... I think in my response back to Halifax I am going to ask for further clarification on this point... namely highlight the line within the guidance notes which say the leading principles do not apply in the case of current accounts!

Hi All, Received a letter from the executive complaints team yesterday. And the news is good!! As expected Halifax did not agree with most of my points but have agreed to remove the entries in the next few days and have offered £100 in compensation. Although I have got the result I wanted, there are a few dubious explanations given in the letter. For example and I quote... "As an aside I would mention that the timescales you have referred to in respect of the default dates do not apply here as this was a current account without any contractual payments to be behind on, unlike a loan" essentially Halifax claim that the ICO's guidance on placing defaults goes out of the window when it comes to current accounts!! I have read the guidance notes and there is a particular section regarding current accounts but I can personally see no mention that you can be ignorant of the leading principles contained within the guidance on the basis that it is a current account. Interested to hear your thoughts on the above.

Just sent email as suggested, will keep the thread updated as soon as I hear anything back from them. Thanks all.

Hi All, Many thanks for the replies so far, I am inclined as suggested to drop an urgent email/letter to Halifax senior management and hope that they see sense and remove the marks immediately. As I see it whether or not the bank charge applied to our account back in 2010 was fair or not is a separate argument. What I believe is undisputable is the fact that the account went into an unauthorised overdraft solely because of this charge in Feb 2010 no payments were made to service the account from 2010 onwards my understanding according to the ICO guidance is that our account should have been marked as a default absolutely no later than July/August 2010. Placing a default more than 5 years after it should have been placed and also stating on it that the default occurred in July 2015 is completely unacceptable and that will be my primary complaint. Regards

Also just in case I wasn't clear in my initial post, I am married so this is a joint mortgage application and also it was a joint Halifax account. So we have both been hit with a default marker.

The lender will consider all defaults registered over 3 years ago, default within the last 12 months is an instant no go. These Halifax defaults were placed a mere 2 weeks before the lender carried out a 2nd credit check as part of the formal application underwriting process so obviously it looks about as bad is it can get from the lenders perspective, which I fully understand and I too would be extremely concerned loaning money to a person who 2 weeks prior to asking had a default registered.

Thank you, I am so stressed out at the moment to say Halifax have thrown a spanner in the works is an understatement! I am completely puzzled as to why Halifax have entered a date of default as being 21/07/15 when the last transaction as proven by the statement obtained in branch today took place in Feb 2010! I have a feeling Halifax are having a clear out and selling old debts to a DCA which is why this entry has suddenly appeared. Just to confirm this is a brand new entry I had no entries relating to Halifax prior to this default being placed.

Hi All, I am in dire need of assistance! I have recently been applying for a Mortgage which has been declined last week due to a default being placed onto our credit files (Me & my wife) by Halifax for an old basic current account which we have not used since 2009. A brief timeline of the events so far.... 17/07/2015 - Applied for mortgage via broker, lender credit checked and issued DIP the same day. 31/07/2015 - Unknown to us until yesterday a new entry for "Halifax" added to both my Wife's and my credit files. 17/08/2015 - Formal mortgage application sent to lender. Lender conducts another credit check and obviously discovers that a default has been added on since the initial credit check they carried out in order to issue the DIP. We had already chosen the property, had the offer accepted etc. The solicitor has ordered the searches as well so we could be considerably out of pocket. I have not had an adverse mark placed on my credit file in over 4 years so to have a default placed 2 weeks before a formal mortgage application is just about the worst thing that could possibly happen timing wise!! What is even worse is that the default is for £39!! The entry on our credit files is as follows: [ATTACH=CONFIG]59110[/ATTACH] As above this account has not been used at all since 2009, we have zero communications from Halifax no statements, letters nothing whatsoever. I managed to find some old paperwork with the account number on it so called into a branch today to en quire as to what had happened to cause a default to be placed suddenly after so many years of inactivity. The chap I spoke to in branch trawled his computer to find the last transaction and issued me with a mini statement which reads as follows..... Sheet: 1 Of 1 Date Issued: 13/02/2010 Date Activity Paid Out Paid In Balance 13Feb10 0.00 13Feb10 CHG ACCOUNT CHARGE 15.00 0.00 15.00 DR TOTAL PAYMENTS/RECEIPTS: 15.00 So as you can see the balance on the account was zero, then for some unknown reason Halifax applied a charge of 15.00. Presumably this has been incurring interest for the past 5 and a bit years hence the default of £39.00. There are no other transactions recorded for this account after Feb 2010. I appreciate the correct approach to this would be a SAR etc.. however as explained above I have just had my mortgage declined. Our existing tenancy agreement terminates in October with no change to renew. And I dare say we will struggle passing the stringent credit checks carried out in the current rental market. So I need to fix this problem as quickly as possible, we also have an appeal in progress with the lender which I am pretty sure will not succeed whilst these marks remain on our file. In summary Halifax have put us into a dire position by registering defaults based solely on a single bank charge some 5 and a bit years down the line!! Without any notification whatsoever. Obviously I need to send a letter asap but my head is a shed at the moment and would appreciate someone giving me some starting points.. Many thanks in advance for any assistance offered.

Thanks to all for the advice so far, will send letters on Monday and will keep you all posted. One final thing, I dont like to leave response timescales upto the other party who long should I give CapQuest to deal with my complaint fully? 14 Days?

Thanks for the response, I am a little confused still though on when the SB clock starts ticking, I thought it was technically from the day that you last paid / made contact? Am I also correct in my thinking that a debt no matter how many times it is sold on or passed around between DCA's still maintains the same "default" date and balance etc, that the original creditor placed on it? The debt is for a substantial ammount and although 99.99% confident they cannot touch me, obviously I need to exercise caution with any contact I make bearing in mind that even with CapQuests iffy data it is still due to drop off in July, though I have a funny feeling that it wont. I think I will send the letter in the format suggested and copy to CallCredit who I raised the original dispute with. Once again thanks for your help so far.

Hi All, I had a debt with Natwest Personal Loans which became SB in July 2012, It didn't drop off my file automatically and when I checked my credit file in January this year the entry was still there, so I raised a dispute with the CRA they investigated and removed the debt the exact wording in there letter was: "After investigation, we can confirm that we are now making arrangements for the disputed entry to be removed from your credit report as more than 6 years have passed since the default date." So far so good and true to their word the entry has been removed... Now the problem "CapQuest" They also have an entry on my credit file for the same debt, the amount and everything is exactly the same but the default date is different instead of it being July 2006 they have it down as July 2007 so it is reported until July this year so not long to wait either way, but CapQuest and their agents Asset Collection & Investigations Ltd, and JDBR constantly harass me. Letters dont bother me but somehow they have got hold of my work number, I am a field engineer so mainly out of the office so colleagues answer the phone on my behalf. They damm well know it is my work number and are doing it purely to humiliate me. So in the same way as I tackled the now removed original entry placed by Natwest I disputed the CapQuest entry with the CRA and CapQuests response was: "After investigation, CapQuest Investments Ltd has advised that the disputed entry cannot be amended as per your request. They have also advised that they have had no contact from you in respect of this account and are unaware of any dispute. CapQuest Investments Ltd has advised that this account has now been referred to their External Agent (namely JB Debt Recovery). CapQuest Investments Ltd has advised you send JB Debt Recovery full written details of your dispute" The letter is quite right in stating that I have never made any contact, so the question is what is my next step? Do I send a SB letter to CapQuest/JB Debt Recovery? Surely as Natwest the original creditor have stated that the debt is 6 years past default that is all the evidence that I need? Unless of course the DCA responds with the good old phantom payment! Many thanks for any assistance.

Hi All, Just a quickpdate: Contacted Respondents solicitor, he said that the formal notice he recieved had an incorrect date and telephone number and so disregarded it! He claims he told the Trbunal to change his contact number but couldnt get through to them, this solicitor btw is from the largest law company in the UK and the excuse simply doesnt wash with me. I am now satisfied that their solicitor has played a dirty trick on me,he knew how desperate I was for a face to face hearing and that if I had known he would be there as he had disregarded the letter than so would I have been. So I now wish to make a complaint to the Tribunal, we are now just over a week away so I think a postponement will be required and I wish the CMD to be reheard in front of a diffrent judge on a more equal footing, can someone please tell me who I should complain to is it just the ET office dealing with the claim?

I have today requested that the respondents solicitor send me a copy of their CMD letter from the ET so I shall wait and see what that says. If the ET changed their minds they either didnt let me know, or the letter was lost in the post. As I said it was my desire that the CMD be held face to face and I only live 30 mins away from the ET so I would have no reason at all not to attend if I had recieved any such letter. I also believe the ET are behaving in an odd fashion, I will do a little timeline later but basically even though made fully aware that there were major difficulites including 3no requests for orders to be issued to the Respondent to force the disclosure of key information. the first scheduled CMD which was due 18th April (By telephone) was cancelled as there were no judges available to sit in the session so it was rescheduled for the 10th May. With regards to an objection, I wish I now had done so but as I said it completley threw me off guard and I was litterally put on the spot and had to answer within a few seconds as to whether I was happy to proceed.