Bank Charges help

uppish

I had a basic bank account with Abbey which i opened in about 1993 i paid my bills by direct debit with this account and never had any problems with money not being in my account. in 1997 i started using my other account to pay my bills with another bank and stopped all my direct debits with Abbey but for some reason one wasnt stopped and they charged me for an unpaid direct debit something like £12 i refused to pay this because i had told Abbey to stop and for some reason had not for this one.

I spoke to them straight away, Abbey told me in the end it must of be a mistake and after the way i had be treated i closed the account in 1998 and never heard from them again. I just split up with my ex and moved out of the family house and moved into a council flat and with in 2 weeks i get a letter from a solicitor asking for £228.18 i was gob smacked. to get a letter out of the blue 12 years after i close an account. Now im not sure what to do and was wondering if any and an advice what i should do.

Mark_In_Hampshire

For a start, these types of alleged debt are normally "statute barred" after 6 years.

It's possible that the bank cancelled the direct debit mandate (along with all the others), but the payee simply set it up again.

There's nothing in the DD system to prevent a payee from doing that, so your cancelling a direct debit does not necessarily mean there won't be any more debits. It's an incredibly dangerous system IMO.