Hi I'm looking for some help with a bit of a sticky situation I am in. I'll try to be as brief as possible. I'm looking to get a mortgage, and have an excellent credit report apart from this one blip from Santander which is resulting in me being rejected. I originally opened an account with Alliance & Leicester in 2010 which was sold to Santander. It was an account I didnt use much, just to pay a few direct debits. 2 or 3 direct debits returned unpaid, so Santander hit me with around £100 worth of charges. I was a bit annoyed by this so decided to just stop using the account and ignored it. Now to my knowledge I never received a notice of default despite them claiming that it was sent. Santander defaulted the account on 19/7/11 with an unpaid amount of £415, all made up of charges which I thought was extortionate. I wasn't really bothered as I wasn't planning on getting a mortgage etc and didn't really realise how it would affect me further down the line! I have since been in contact with them and have offered to settle it if they remove the default, but they are refusing to do so as they believe all of the charges where correct. What I am really looking for is advice on how I can get it removed. Obviously tried to negotiation with them, and explaining the circumstances but they refuse to budge. Is there a way that I can look into wheter they have handled the account incorrectly, or is there something I can argue that I signed T&C's as and Alliance & Leicester customer, not Santander? I'm just hoping that someone has a way of getting it removed on a 'technicality'. Also, would it benefit my credit report if it was settled. As I understand it will be there for 6 years anyway, and a default effects your credit file whether settled or not. Thanks in advance for any help. Michael

HI there, I stupidly took out a current account with Santander in my first year of uni and proceeded to max out the £1000 overdraft limit. Thinking nothing of it i continued to pay my bills from my Natwest account. I then attempted to apply for a phone contract and was turned down by several of the major telephone providers. So i checked my credit report to find i had 6 missed payments to my Abbey account. I had no idea how i was missing payments as i had never organised any pay plan with them and had no idea that i was in any sort of trouble with them as they had never written to me. From then on i noticed they had slapped on an unarranged overdraft fee of £50 per month. Before my credit report worsened i arranged in January to have a payment plan with them of £32 a month as im still a student it was all i could afford. This was despite several arguments with them that i had to pay £70 into which they tried to bully me. I have been continuosly paying the £32 a month fee and havent missed it, and they had stopped their charges. Until this month where i have received a bank statement saying that they are now charging me £100 per month in unarranged over draft fee. HELP!!