Baines & Ernst Aggro!

sacphil

Charco wrote: »

presumably Phil would have received word from a DCA that they would now be pursuing his case and these letters (or phonecalls) should have been forwarded onto his Debt Man Company!

Thanks for your interest in this case Charco, but I'm not sure that posting 'presumptions' on a forum that is being contributed to by the party that the complaint is held against is particularly helpful for either party. This issue really does not need any more confusion. Unfortunately, due to the length and detail of the complaint I have with this company I have not been able to go into every minute detail on this forum, so I will apologise now if this has caused any confusion, but in the spirit of the forum (ie. Providing support and help to others who may find themselves in a similar situation), I would be grateful if we kept the discussion moving in an objectively focused direction, without the need for speculation.

To clear this up:

Unfortunatley, I have not had word from a DCA for (what I estimate to be) around one and a half to two years. Regardless of this fact, the debt was passed to a third party in May 2006, and correspondence to this effect WAS sent to B&E at the time. Even if this wasn't the case, I would still expect the company that I am paying for this service to have been in contact with the creditor in question at least once over the last three and a half years.....but if that was the case then I wouldn't be in the position I am now.

I completely accept Nicks point regarding it being difficult to work with creditors and third parties concurrently, but as I'm sure both Nick and the other people that have been following this post will agree, this is not something that should take three years to come to light. I have fully upheld my responsibilities as the recipient of the Plan that I have been provided and there must come a point where somebody is held accountable for the funds that I have been trustingly committing to my Plan which have now vanished.

Thanks everybody for your continued interest!

sacphil

Thanks Charco, I was just keen to keep the posts moving in the right direction.

I will concede (to be fair to the DCA concerned), as previously posted, that they did send me letters informing me that they were chasing money owed to the original Creditor, and these were duly forwarded on to B&E. It is only in the last 1-2 years that I have not received anything from them, but in any case, this should not have mattered.

As Nickpearson posted earlier, I have been able to contact him directly (Thank God for MSE!!!), which should rule out any repeats of the shambolic conversations I've had with Customer Services recently, and for that I am most grateful. It is a refreshing surprise to find somebody within B&E that is taking a pro-active approach to dealing with customer issues.

As far as the way forward is concerned......I have given them a tangible timescale within which to respond to my complaint, so I should have an update for you all in the very near future! (?)

Charco_2

The very best of luck Phil, i particularly look forward to hearing how a debt of £189 took 8 monthly payments £100 to deal with... my maths aint so great i suppose!

sacphil

You and me both. I've got a feeling that it'll be something to do with B&E using estimated balances when you speak to them, something I can't really get my head around.....I mean, I'm pretty certain they wouldn't just accept you estimating how much you can afford to pay each month would they? Hence the reason for you providing proof of income / outgoings etc. Apparently though, this is standard practice for B&E. Again, perhaps if they spoke to the Creditor or DCA every once in a while this wouldn't be the case.

Charco_2

I thought sending out balances was a legal requirement from the banks - even to accounts in debt solutions. There is a change in the law afoot too though to make sure this is happening.

Ah well!

Be sure to come back and update though!

fermi

**** Board Guide Comment ****

Please keep this thread on topic. That is specifically helping the original poster with their situation and problems.

Thanks.

sacphil

Hi all!

Just a quick post for anyone who is still following this thread. I'm currently waiting for a response to my complaint which was e-mailed to and received by B&E on 4th November. Nearly two weeks now......and not even a courtesy call from the person dealing with it. Still no idea where my money is and no confirmation of how much debt I have outstanding. I've been in contact with the Financial Ombusman Service and OFT so hopefully developments will happen soon.........

(Please forgive my blind optimism, it's all I have left!)

Charco_2

That's a shame SacPhil - wonder where Nick vanished off to!?

Thanks for the update though, i think it's important for the site to get feedback!

sacphil

Nick is still around, although he has passed the complaint onto somebody else. He does reply to e-mails but only with non committal "moving as fast as we can" type responses, no details, updates etc. etc.

sacphil

Well, here we are.....2010 and still exploring the desolate barrens of B&E complaint land!!

A quick update....

I received a cheque refund over the Christmas period, but no explanation as to what it was for, so I'm not cashing that just yet...

Also, no 'full written response' to my original complaint, which I have been promised time and time again.

So, state of play at the moment is that B&E are outside of their 8 week intended maximum reponse time as stated in their complaints handling procedure.

My complaint is now eligible to be passed to the Financial Ombudsman Service, so I'm drafting that as we speak.

But what I really want to know is whether anybody here has had any dealings with the Ombudsman and what I can expect from them.

I have contacted B&E this morning to tell them that unless they provide me with an electronic copy of their response by the end of the day I will proceed with the complaint, but it this just going to drag it out even further?

As ever, thanks in advance for your advice and Happy New Year!