Barclays Collections - phone calls and rant.

[blfamily]

In the past I have had anonyomous calls from Barclays Collections in Manchester and recevied compensation (if you call £150 compensation!).

 

Barclays tell me they are supposidly obeying Ofcam guidelines and that they should leave a message if there is no reply from the customer - guess what they aren't!

T.C at 8.39am no mesage, T.C at 2.41pm, no message.

 

Now I know what they are after, yep money. The moment I pay less than the agreed amount and they are after me.

 

But I have tried to explain my situation and the fact I have no more money to offer them doesn't seem to interest them at all (well some guy called John at the call centre, who must be such a saddo outside his job told me Barclays cannot help) - strange before things went wrong with Tax Credits and my wife's illness, they were all to happy to give me a loan to pay off this loan and my credit cards for another £150 a month more than the loan I was already one - I refused it of course.

 

So as Pay Plan are assiting me, I'll ignore the phone calls, send Pay Plan the reminder letter and let them sort it out.

[slick132]

Hi Blfamily,

 

You know we have 3 sections in the forum with very specialised help and info if you need it - http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/#consumer-forums-center-debt

 

Slick

[blfamily]

Thank You

[slick132]

BLF,

 

Don't spose you've suffered any bank charges you wanna reclaim?

 

Slick

[blfamily]

Claimed them already - going to repost in the debt forum.

[blfamily]

Update:

 

They still keep calling me;, 3, 4 or more times a day between 8am and 8.40pm. Only 2 phone messages have been left, so in 10 days they have failed to follow OffCom guidance on all but 2 occasions. So today I have answered 2 (out of 3) calls from Barclays to receive the silent treatment. So will be contacting OffCom to complain. Oh and sting them for more compensation.

[slick132]

BLF,

 

Couldn't see your post on Debt forum.

 

Have a look here if you need - http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/bank-templates-library/37006-harassment-telephone-response-letter.html

 

Slick

[blfamily]

It went in the debt collection forum and appears to have been buried under many more messages.

[blfamily]

Update. Spoke to a manager at Barclays who explained why I couldn't get any help - and he knew we were now with Pay Plan. Today I get a reminder letter stating the obvious. and this evening the first phone call, as before no message left.

Going to be a stressful few weeks whilst Pay Plan sort Barclays out.

[tonycee]

and this evening the first phone call, as before no message left..

 

Have you considered asking your phone service provider to block the incoming number.

Dosent matter if its landline or mobile.

They also have a duty of care to protect their customers from nuisance calls.

Warn them that if they wont help you, you will switch to a provider who will.

Good luck.

[blfamily]

Because we were short of funds (Christmas, phone bill & Car repair), I rang the Mortgage Centre and asked if I could alter the Direct debit. Of course you can (skip a payment), I can do it now; and after a couple of minutes the c/s rep came back to me, yes that is all done, just ring us back and we will restart payment, pay the payment into the bank etc....

 

At no point did he mention that it was to late for the action to be completed - I rang on the Thursday, with the mortgage due out on the next Monday. I went up town on Saturday and I couldn't get any cash out, so I got a mini statement and my mortgage payment was showing as being taken on the next Monday, pushing me overdrawn.

 

I rang the Mortgage centre first thing Monday and a female c/s rep said that when I called last Thursday, it was already to late to skip that payment, I informed her of what had happened and she said I would get any charges refunded. Yesterday I get a letter telling me that the mortgage payment had not been collected and they are charging me £27.50.

 

It is the first time I have had to miss a mortgage payment in almost 14 years and this cockup caused me great distress. I am sure that Barclays acted dishonestly here; the first C/S rep must have known it was to late to stop the payment, I can't see why the IT System would not flag up the operation would fail as the DD process was underway? The lady I spoke to last Monday said that she would stop any charges, again she has not.

 

I have made a formal complaint to Barclays Mortgage Centre in Leicester and demanded that everything is sorted by Christmas Eve. I doubt it, I haven't had the standard 1st response letter yet (may come later today...). I have asked for all the charges on my mortgage to be refunded, I have also asked for overdrawn bank charges to be repaid, as well I have asked for £250 compensation and that they pay my mortgage this month as a gesture of goodwill . The latter I doubt.

[sillygirl1]

A DD particularly for mortgage payments is locked into the banking system 10 days in advance, therefore if you had this money available it would show up and the mortgage co would have grabbed it.

 

Standing Orders can only be taken on the day they are due, ask to switch to a Standing Order and this should give them the incentive to do a refund.

[Bookworm]

Or DON'T ask to change to Standing Order, do it yourself instead. Cancel d/d, set up s/o, that way, you're in control of how much and when.

 

It may be that the letter you got about charges was sent before you had the chat with the advisor, in fact, highly likely, as it would have got automatically generated when your payment took you over limit, and Barclays letters have a habit of coming late, so don't worry too much about it, and query this when they re-open.

[blfamily]

A DD particularly for mortgage payments is locked into the banking system 10 days in advance, therefore if you had this money available it would show up and the mortgage co would have grabbed it.

 

Standing Orders can only be taken on the day they are due, ask to switch to a Standing Order and this should give them the incentive to do a refund.

 

If DD's are locked in 10 days in advance - even more reason that the customer services rep should have told me. I'l go the STO route, as they haven't responded yet as I requested (by 24/12/07)

[blfamily]

Some of you may remember my previous posting, where by Barclays mortgages told me I could happily stop a DD and skip a payment - of course payment went through, causing a charge to be applied to the mortgage, along with charges at my bank for 3 failed DD's.

 

Had a response from Barclays dated 18 December - received on 4 January, asking for proof of charges. Despite that I had sent a complaint letter with the original mini statements on it (as yet not acknowledged). I wrote back telling them they had the mini statements already, their reply was they need the statement. This was sent 2 weeks ago as yet still heard nothing from Barclays Mortgages.

 

At the original contact I asked how to pay the money in the mortgage account, I was told just take in the mortgage statement and the bank will do the rest. My wife went into the branch clutching her tax credits that we are using to pay January's mortgage to be told that they need a paying in slip...

Now I want to give them money they don't want it.

 

For the record I have cancelled the DD permanently and have asked my current bank to set up a standing order. I've altered the date so the SO goes out earlier in the month than the DD used to.

 

How much longer should I give the bank, at the moment it has been 5 weeks since they screwed things up.I'm just wondering whether my request for compensation is delaying things? (I asked them to pay me £250 and pay the December mortgage payment - doubt they will but it was worth asking).

[slick132]

Hi BLF,

 

The important thing here is that, even if the bank won't take or don't seem to want the mortgage pay'ts, you put away safely the amounts you owe them each month. Put it in a savings or seperate a/c so, when they finally sort themselves out, you have the money ready to pay over to them.

 

As regards getting the chgs back and compensated for their error, you'll have to keep on at them and not let them wear you down.

 

When the pay'ts issue is resolved, you can then issue proceedings against them for rep't of any penalty chgs you've suffered as a result of their error. Better still, however, would be to sort it by negotiation.

 

I'll get this merged with your last thread so your case is kept together - please use this thread from now on.

 

Slick

[blfamily]

Interesting delaying tactics Barclays are using now.

 

Still no sign of my fee refund, instead I had a letter from Gill Earley a Team Leader - standard we are sorry you have had to complain, we will reply within 4 weeks.

 

What 4 weeks? Barclays knew of this complaint on December 17th 2007, why has it taken them till 28th January to get this far?

 

I had the standard sorry letter dated 18th December, received 4th January. This was from Donna Carr a Customer Care Manager. I respond to this letter and get another dated 17th January from Ben Cooper, another Customer Care Manager - now this one.

 

Question is should I have to wait for up to another 4 weeks, or go straight to the FOS.

[slick132]

If you go to FOS now, I think you'll be waiting months anyway as they're snowed under with bank chgs complaints.

 

The main thing is to ensure their errors don't end up causing you probs.

 

Keep the money each month safely so it's there when needed and keep on at Cust'r Services till you get the right response.

 

Have you tried sorting this at branch level with a Personal Banker or whatever they're called this week.

[hollyvshalifax]

Can any one advice. I took out a Redstone mortgage via a broker! less than 6 months ago and I now want to pay off the mortgage I have been told by Redstone that if I pay off this mortgage before 2 years then I will have to pay over wait for it £10,000.

 

Is this tre and any way I can not pay the charges?

[hollyvshalifax]

Can any one advice. I took out a Redstone mortgage via a broker! less than 6 months ago and I now want to pay off the mortgage I have been told by Redstone that if I pay off this mortgage before 2 years then I will have to pay over wait for it £10,000.

 

Is this tre and any way I can not pay the charges?

[slick132]

Holly's been answered in Mortgages forum now.

[rory32]

3 threads merged. Please stick to one thread per topic.