Co-op Bank and Smile

[Deleted User]

Hi all,
Anyone having any problems with the Coop and Smile Bank not answering letters? The reason is that back in May I wrote to the banks advising them that due to a diagnosis of a heart condition that I was unable to work and that I would be unable to meet my financial commitments to them. That being a small overdraft and a loan with 15 monthly payments remaining.

I enclosed a copy of my SOA and details of my condition and I provided proof of income by the way of a wage slip showing that I was receiving statutory sick pay and housing benefits. I enclosed two cheques for the initial payments and these have been sent monthly since and cashed and placed into my accounts. At the same time I contacted my other creditors who responded quickly and accepted the payments that were suggested using the national debt line template.

After a couple of weeks I started to receive telephone calls from managed accounts chasing for payments and each time after I explained the situation they admitted that they had no access to the letters and to ring customer services who did. Despite informing them that I had requested to deal with this problem by letter they suggested that me calling customer services would speed things up as it could take 8 weeks for them to respond.

So over the next three months I received numerous phone calls until I requested via secure message that they stopped. Indeed they did, yet no reply had been received to the many letters or emails that I had sent. The usual increasing threats of action followed and I received a postcard that a personal caller was to be despatched and to call them to discuss the situation. Every couple of weeks I sent follow up letters and a weekly email requesting an update to what I had informed them of.

In august I wrote to them again sending copies of all the correspondence I had previously sent and a separate letter complaining at their lack of response and requested that they provide me a copy of their complaints procedure.

They did reply acknowledging my complaint with a copy of their complaints procedure which states that they will respond within five working days to a written complaint. The date on this letter was eleven working days after the date that they say they received my complaint.

On Friday last week I rang the complaints manager named in my letter from them and was shocked at the response. I recorded the call and I advised them that I was and he was ok with that. He admitted that for whatever unknown reason no one had actually dealt with any of the letters I had sent in. Any and all recovery action has now been stopped along with the letters that constantly arrive. He also acknowledged that they had received all the emails that I had sent along with the letters, SOA and cheques.

So they are investigating to as why the automated procedure has followed its course without anyone intervening. I really cant wait to hear the excuse that they are going to use and its a scary thought that the next course of action could have been the county court.

I sent all correspondence by recorded delivery and one of the emails returned a senders receipt and I continued to send payment even without their acknowledgement.

I feel though that even that they are now investigating what has caused their failure to respond I would like to take this issue further. By further I mean to a regulator or ombudsman. But who would I take it to?

I have banked with the coop for nearly 20 years and always believed in the ethics of the bank, but not any more. I cannot believe that such a lack of response is legal and feel that some action should be taken against them. I appreciate that I owe them money and to be honest followed a lot of threads on here on how to be upfront and deal with debt. At no time have I not wanted to pay and have even continued to pay albeit at a greatly lower amount.

So what is my next step? I will await the response as to their failure to respond and they have confirmed by email that they are dealing with it. Hopefully this will be resolved.

regards to all

Sean

BeautyandtheBeast_3

no advice but im very impressed you recorded the calls - i wouldnt have thught of that. brill xxx