Bank Account Closure

superclio

Hiya,
I'm in the most enormous pickle, to put it mildly. I moved to the US having left behind some heinous credit card debts. I was able to keep my UK address and had my mail forwarded, for the first year I sent money back every month to my current account to keep my direct debits paid up. Some time in March one of my wire transfers went missing. I didn't know this at first, and it was until I received angry threatening letters that I found out the money had left the US but been lost en route to the UK. I was charged left right and centre for unreturned direct debits, late charges, you name it, it went up to hundreds of pounds. Eventually in August after months of harassing the bank in the US and my bank in the UK (Abbey National) they sheepishly admitted that it had 'been sitting on a ledger' all this time as they didn't know where to deposit it, I think the US bank had entered my account number incorrectly. Abbey refunded most of my charges (not all though), however as far as my creditors went it was too late, my credit was now shot and the charges were crippling me. After much advice and calling around I decided to go to Spectrum Financial who would arrange an IVA for me (I know I could do it for free myself, but I was so overwhelmed I just didn't see how I could handle it, especially not since I was coming and going between the UK and the US). I last made a deposit into my current account in October, and have been intending to do another ever since. I have a £500 overdraft facility and am £300 into that. Because I'm charged the same amount no matter how much I wire I try to wait and not send the money monthly, but every two months instead. Now I find Abbey National are closing my account immediately since I haven't been making monthly deposits. I emailed them and explained that I am still trying to recover from the enormous financial set back caused by THEM losing my money for five months. I told them I will be sending money in the next two weeks to pay off my overdraft and do not intend to use it again, in fact I'd prefer it if I couldn't go into the red. I explained that there should be some leeway here considering I was so patient with them (too patient. If I knew how to I would seriously like to sue them for the stress and money they caused me).
The bottom line is this: if they close my account down I am screwed. I cannot open another account without being in the UK, so I will be unable to pay my IVA (unless I did it with international cheques or something like that from the US which would be SO inefficient not to mention costing me a fortune too). Can Abbey National really behave like this? I know it is totally unfair, but are they allowed to do this?
Does anyone have ANY advice for me? I'm absolutely beside myself at the moment at that prospect that I won't even have a bank account, never mind the impact this will have on my IVA and my credit.

Any advice is GREATLY APPRECIATED.

---lee---

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Debt-Free Wannabe

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Link: http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=129578