Trying to remove a default

[wagster]

I am trying to get a default removed from my credit file in relation to a Abbey/Santander loan.

 

In December 2006 i applied for a £10k loan over 5 years in the bank with Abbey but never got a confirmed answer so

 

a week later i applied with Tesco and was accepted.

 

Just after i got the money from Tesco, Abbey approved the loan and paid the money into my Cahoot account.

 

I contacted Abbey within the cooling off period to arrange paying the loan back and they told me to send a cheque to clear the loan.

 

Due to the amount of the loan i was advised to send 2 cheques to stop any problems with a large amount.

 

I phoned Abbey towards the end of January 2009 after i had sent them the cheques to confirm receipt

as i wanted to ensure everything was sorted before i was due to go to Afghanistan,

and i was told they had received them and the account was now closed.

 

I was contacted by my wife a month later informing me i had received a letter from Abbey

saying the cheque had been returned unpaid from Cahoot.

 

I contacted Cahoot to find out why the cheques had been returned

but they could not find any records of the cheques being presented let alone being returned.

 

I wrote to Abbey explaining what Cahoot had said.

I asked them to return the so called returned cheques and also asking for another option to pay the full amount

as the suggestions of how to pay in the letter they sent were not an option

as i did not have a bank or savings account with Abbey and obviously using a cheque did not work the 1st time.

 

I also advised that i would not make any payment until the cheques were returned to myself

to ensure that the so called returned cheques were not re-presented for payment.

 

To this day i have never received a letter in response to my letter and requests.

 

In October 2009 i moved house.

 

The first thing i had any correspondence to do with this loan was in July 2011 when

 

i received a letter from Moorcroft attempting to recover the full £10k plus the interest

of what i was meant to pay for having the loan over 5 years.

 

The total was just over £14k.

 

As they didn't care about the fact that i had tried to pay the loan off at the beginning

the only option i had was to pay them the full amount, so

i entered into a payment plan to start paying it off.

 

In December 2013 i made a full and final payment of the outstanding balance and the loan is now paid off.

 

On examining my credit report i see that a a 6 month late maker was raised in June & July 2011

and a default was raised against in the loan in August 2011,

yet for every month from the start of the loan in January 2009 up to June 2011 all the makers show payments are up to date

even though i had never made one payment.

 

I am now in the process of trying to get the default removed from my file and i am hoping i can get some advice and assistance in this matter.

 

I have sent off a letter to Santander complaints using the example shown on

http://www.learnmoney.co.uk/credit-file/remove_default_notice.html

and got a reply saying they have requested a copy of the signed loan agreement

along with a statement of the account and these will arrive shortly under separate cover.

 

In relation to the default notice they can see that the notice was issued on the 15th June 2011 and 16th June 2011

and the default was registered on the 14th July 2011.

Unfortunately they are unable to provide a certified copy of the default notice as is not something that is held on file.

 

After investigation they confirm the default is valid and correct and therefore unable to uphold my complaint.

 

Is it worth me still trying to pursue getting the default removed and if yes any ideas on what to write in a response?

 

Any help appreciated.

[Bazooka Boo]

So what happened to the 10k loan they approved? Where did that money go?

[wagster]

So what happened to the 10k loan they approved? Where did that money go?

 

In my bank account.

[Bazooka Boo]

Sorry I'm a bit slow on the uptake today...

 

So you ended up with two loans for 10k each?

Did you repay Abbey?

[wagster]

Sorry I'm a bit slow on the uptake today...

 

So you ended up with two loans for 10k each?

Did you repay Abbey?

 

No problem.

 

Yes i ended up with 2 £10k loans.

 

The tesco loan has just finished which i paid every month as normal.

 

The Abbey loan i tried to pay it back in full right at the beginning but they reckon the cheques was returned from my bank account even though my bank had no record of the cheques ever being presented for cashing.

 

As the Abbey never replied to my request to paying by alternative means and also not sending me back the so called returned cheques i never made a payment to Abbey.

 

I paid off the whole loan in December last year to coincide with what would have been the original last payment of the loan agreement if that makes sense.

 

I never received a default letter from Abbey and it wasn't until Moorcroft contacted me asking for payment that i arranged to make token payments as they were not interested in the issues i had when originally trying to pay off the loan 18 months earlier.

 

If they had accepted that as far as i was concerned i tried to pay it off during the cooling off period and and far as i was concerned i only owe £10k then i would have paid it there and then but they wanted the £10K plus the interest of the loan agreed on the loan agreement so i decided to say sod it and keep the money as they had already put a black mark against my credit file and then pay off the total cost of what i was meant to pay over the 5 years on the original loan ending date.

[citizenB]

I think you might need to start with the CEO of Santander (Abbey). Identify your letter as an official complaint - tell the whole story as clearly as possible and suggest that their actions might be construed as unfair. Have a read of BCOBs in my signature and see if there is anything there that you could use.

 

Drop in the fact that they have "treated you unfairly" a couple of times

 

You should send the letter to their Head/registered office addressed to the Chief Executive - you should also mail your letter using a tracked method.. Recorded or Special Delivery.