Please help: Abbey messing me around, damaging credit rating...?

[Deleted User]

So, I've heard back from Abbey! Sadly, they didn't answer my concerns so I've now escalated my complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service who think it sounds like there's some kind of IT problem on Abbey's side.

Every time I phone up to make payment I am told that my account is up-to-date, or that I do not need to make a payment because no payment is due.

Abbey said:

Depending on what time of the month you call will depend on whether you are told your account is up-to-date or behind.

My answer: WRONG! I just phoned up yesterday (5th Oct) to pay the bill for last month (26th Sept) and was told that my account is up-to-date and no payment was due.

Abbey also said that payments made to my account are always used to clear arrears before being put towards future months' payments.

My answer: WRONG! The customer service advisor looked into my account in further detail after I complained, and suggested I am still in arrears from February! Despite paying 9 months of payments since then!

I genuinely don't know what to do now as my credit report is taking a battering through no fault of my own. I phone up to pay each month, but Abbey tell me that no payment is due and that my account is up-to-date. When I make payment they tell me everything's fine and that no payment is due for a further month...but then I get a call from collections telling me that my payments are late!

Shambles.

Paulgonnabedebtfree

Deleted_User wrote: »

So, I've heard back from Abbey! Sadly, they didn't answer my concerns so I've now escalated my complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service who think it sounds like there's some kind of IT problem on Abbey's side.

Every time I phone up to make payment I am told that my account is up-to-date, or that I do not need to make a payment because no payment is due.

Abbey said:

Depending on what time of the month you call will depend on whether you are told your account is up-to-date or behind.

My answer: WRONG! I just phoned up yesterday (5th Oct) to pay the bill for last month (26th Sept) and was told that my account is up-to-date and no payment was due.

Abbey also said that payments made to my account are always used to clear arrears before being put towards future months' payments.

My answer: WRONG! The customer service advisor looked into my account in further detail after I complained, and suggested I am still in arrears from February! Despite paying 9 months of payments since then!

I genuinely don't know what to do now as my credit report is taking a battering through no fault of my own. I phone up to pay each month, but Abbey tell me that no payment is due and that my account is up-to-date. When I make payment they tell me everything's fine and that no payment is due for a further month...but then I get a call from collections telling me that my payments are late!

Shambles.

Disgraceful - but not surprising.

[Deleted User]

Just got ANOTHER call from them asking me to pay, even though I paid at 11am this morning.

I can't take this any more.

[Deleted User]

Great news!

Abbey have admitted full responsibility and have removed all late payments and arrangements to pay from my account. I got a call from them on Saturday confirming this and apologising for the way I have been treated.

I'll post further later.

Paulgonnabedebtfree

Deleted_User wrote: »

Great news!

Abbey have admitted full responsibility and have removed all late payments and arrangements to pay from my account. I got a call from them on Saturday confirming this and apologising for the way I have been treated.

I'll post further later.

Will they be removing potentially damaging info from your credit file too?
Will their apology involve giving you money to compensate?
I wasn't treated nearly as badly as you but I'm in the process of jumping ship. They can be a nightmare to deal with.

[Deleted User]

Hello,

After many long months and several letters, here is what happened.

Firstly, I got a call from one of the managers in Collections, who explained how their systems work.

It's fair to say that Abbey's own IT system is a total mess. There are two systems, all of which update at different times - and he agreed with my comments that the system isn't accurate enough for their staff to be able to see when a payment is due or not.

I had three (1) late payments on my credit reports, along with an 'arrangement to pay' for May.

He told me that the (1)s weren't my fault as I'd tried to make payment, so that these would be removed.

He said that the arrangement to pay had no legal basis to be applied as I hadn't come to any arrangement with them, not had I missed any payment, so my credit reports would be cleansed to reflect full on-time payments from Abbey.

So, my credit report is now nothing but perfect on-time payments each month. Only (0)s all the way.

No compensation, but I'm not bothered about that.

My advice to everyone else is to challenge Abbey as it's clear their systems are not fit for purpose. I'm still going to ask the FOS to continue their investigation on my behalf.

[Deleted User]

Seems I spoke too soon.

Abbey corrected my credit report and it's now a sea of (0)s showing no late payments and all 31 payments on-full and on-time.

BUT, when I logged in today there's a big fat default registered for November, even though I paid in full and in plenty of time (by direct debit, in fact).

And now they are refusing to remove it because they are denying they corrected my credit report in the first place, claiming instead that they rejected my complaint.

What a total and utter shambles. I really can't take any more of Abbey - the amount of money I've spent on phone calls to them is a disgrace.

AdviceSought

I had a problem with Abbey. After getting nowhere, I sent an email to their CEO and within a few weeks they sent me a cheque for the total of the bank charges I had incurred due to them not paying attention to my initial letters. I recently got in touch with the CEO again as my credit reference showed my account being 4 months in arrears despite an arrangement I had with them. I didn't receive a reply to that, but my credit file was corrected last week. Antonio.Osorio@abbey.com is the email address I contacted.

[Deleted User]

They asked me to fax them a copy of my credit report and other proof that they had amended my Experian and Equifax credit reports, which I've just done.

It's utterly disgusting that Abbey aren't even aware of what action their own staff have taken - and they've shifted the onus onto me - the CUSTOMER - to proof to them that THEY updated my credit report!

I'm hopefully going to pay the whole balance off in February and can't wait. What a shambles of an organisation.

[Deleted User]

Right, a further update on this very sorry saga:

I spent a further 18 minutes on the phone to Customer Services who said they couldn't help and that I would need to phone a different (direct) number for the complaints department - even though every person previously has been able to transfer me to the complaints department internally.

I then spent 21 minutes on the phone to 'James' in Complaints who advised it can taken them 5 days to receive a fax (5 days?!?!? 5 days?!?!?!) and that the person handling my complaint hasn't received it yet.

He spoke to Collections who advised that the default was a punitive measure to reflect the fact I was late in making payments earlier in 2009 - even though:

a) Abbey upheld my complaint and amended my report to show no late payments (in 2007,08,09)
b) They have no legal basis to apply a default in that situation - banks can't just punitively give defaults to reflect a few late payments - they have to default you if 'the relationship has broken down' (e.g. 3 payments late by a few days does not = default, whereas 1 payment late by a month does).
c) They didn't write to me or notify me in any way that a default was going to be applied

So, the upshot of this is that they have to open a NEW complaint and get that going, which wastes more time and effort and is further demonstration of how useless they are.

One final point: would you like to know how much money I've spent on the phone to Abbey in the past year, sorting this mess out?

Answer: £129.18.

That's how much the calls have cost me (0870 number from a mobile - I have no landline). Absolutely disgusting.