Barclaycard credit card debt

minab_2

Hello

I am hoping someone may be able to offer some advice please. My partner has a credit card debt of £3023 with Barclaycard. Due to an accident he had a work, he was unable to work for 6 months (this was in Novemebr 2008), because of this we fell into financial hardship. As a result we defaulted in our payments, however we managed to arrange a payment schedule with them of £33 a month. We have carried on paying this up untill now. The problem i have is, we have received a lump sum of cash of £3000, of which we plan to split between 2 credit cards. £1800 to Barclaycard and £1200 to MBNA. I have written to both of these companies explaining that i had received this money from a friend and we were in financial hardship etc, and have yet to receive a response. My partner rang Barclaycard this evening and told him that they do not accept full final settlement figures. However our payment arrangement is with Mercers, who i believe is Barclays in house debt collection. When we ring Mercers and give the account number we are transferred to Barclays, so this is getting rather confusing! My questions are, would we be better off stopping the direct debit payment to them of £33 a month and waiting to be contacted by Mercers, or shall we keep pursuing them with letters?

Thanks for any advice.

mixedupdebt

Hi Minab,

You are correct - mercers are owned fully by Barclays and are part of their group. Chech this site for the template letters and write once more to both companies with your full and final offer. Give then perhaps 2 weeks to respond and after that, if they have still not accepted, cancel the DD. Write to them again, stating why the DD has been canceled, and make a final offer to them.

If its has passed to mercers then you probably already have a default logged against you for the debt. If not, then by continuing to not pay the DD, you soon will have.

This all depends on your other financial status. If you only have the 2 listed debts, then over all your debt is pretty low and could be paid off over time. If you have lots of debts (above say £15k, other more severe routes may be best). Only you can decide.

As mercers are involved, are they dealing fully with it or did their letter say that while they are dealing with it, you should still honour your agreed repayments with Barclays? If this, then forget about mercers. If mercers are dealing fully with it, then they are the ones to make the full and final offer to as they are more likely to accept it.

You may need to miss a few DD payments before they take you seriously thou.

Hope it helps,

DEVONLIFE_2

Hi minab
I had the same issue with Barclaycard. I had a letter from Mercers I called them and explained that I had an agreement with Barclaycard and was at a loss as to why they referred the account to them. I was on hold for 10 mins to be told " Oh yes sorry its back with customer services sorry" they hung up! Nice!! So it may well have been sent back to Barclaycard for collection as its paid regularly. DL.

minab_2

Hi Mixedupdebt

Many thanks for your reply. I am assuming that the payment plan is with mercers, as this is who my partner set it up with and it does state on our statements that it is to mercers. I ve just checked our statement and it doesnt look like it is a direct debit as it states 'card payment to', however they just take this out of our account my partner is not phoning them and paying over the phone. So this is concerning me now, as i cant cancel a direct debit that isnt set up. We do have a low interest loan for 8k, but we would prefer to get rid of these credit cards. It is rather confusing as to why we are passed over to Barclay when phoning mercers, i wonder if this is because we havent technically defaulted for a while on this account?