Mortgage Company Error Advice

cferrism

Hi Folks,

Looking for a bit of advice regarding an error my mortgage company recently made in the hope that someone has been in a similar circumstance or has more knowledge of the situation than me. Apologies if this is a bit long winded but any advice would be appreciated:

In February I called up to request a payment holiday from my mortgage company as I am able to do after 9 months of continual payments. I was told they were unable to give me a payment holiday as my account was flagged in a way that usually meant bankruptcy had been declared by the customer. After a slight panic and having to convince the advisor that I had started no such proceedings the agent put me through to their collections department.

After a long conversation with the Collections department I was no further forward. They told me that they had recieved instructions from an insolvency company june last year that was dealing with my debt management and that they had a letter with my signature on it requesting this which again I told them was bizarre as the direct debit was still coming out of my account every month. When I asked to see the letter, as by this point even I was starting to doubt myself, they seemed to start to believe me and said they were unable to send me the letter in case it was a mix up with another customer for security reasons. I was told they would contact the insolvency company to check that they had the right account and call me back. After the call I checked my mortgage statement for the previous month and it did seem that some of the balance had been written off and Ill be honest I was starting to wonder if I was stupid to have even queried this.

2 months later and I still hadnt recieved any word although saw that they had increased my dd this month. As Im on holiday this week I decided to take time to look at it all this again as the stress of doing it during work last time had made me put it off. Signed up to credit expert and could see the account was still flagged as defaulted but that balance that had been written off had appeared again so obviously something had happened they just hadn't bothered to get back to me.

Called them this morning to find out what was happening. Was told that the error was now resolved and that they could only apologise. Asked why no-one had called me back to let me know what had happened. was given apologies that no-one had called back and assured that person that had dealt with it would call me back.

Just recieved a call again. apologies have been made. Apparently it was someone with the same name, in the same post code, with a similar date of birth????? and because of this they had accidentally put it on my account. They seemed suprised when I highlighted the fact that this was still showing as a default on my account and again could only apologise and they will get this fixed. When I asked why I have had to highlight all of this and have had no communication from them, again apology after apology. I have asked them to at least send me a letter as well explaining how this happened and what they have done to rectify the issue but it is still niggling at me:

• This has obviously had an impact on my credit rating for the past 8 months that I havent picked up on. I have been declined for credit cards during that time and put this down to some other reason but its annoying me that this could have been the cause. When I raised this issue it was another apology.
  
• It seems bizarre that a customers name would be all that a company would use to change the status of an account (the same postcode and similar date of birth were only added by the last person when I queried that it was only name they had used so Im not convinced)
  
• The size of the cluster f* and the fact that no one responded to me without some serious chasing up. I only recieve a statement every quarter and I now have no idea what my mortgage is looking like balance wise.

This has turned into more of a rant than a query so apologies but the call is still fresh in my mind. Should i just be putting this down to a these things happen error and accept the apology and as long as the default gets cleared forget all about it or am I right to still be peeved from what I consider quite a big issue with the way my mortgage has been managed and if so where should I go from here?

RufusA

Very annoying!

I would strongly recommend checking what information they have on file about you (under the Data Protection Act), so that you can correct any other errors:

http://www.ico.gov.uk/what_we_cover/data_protection/your_rights/how_to_access_information.aspx

You could try contacting the information commisioner's office to see if they have breached the Data Protection Act by not correctly establishing identity when updating records.

If they are in breach, and you have materially lost out, then you could be entitled to compensation under section 13 of the data protection act. However unless you want a protracted fight it's probably best to rant, then draw a line under it and move on. A nicely worded letter of complaint after you've recieved your information might get you a few M&S vouchers in return!

Rufus.