MSE News: Mortgages hikes after Yorkshire/Clydesdale Bank glitch

thebigfella

having recieved the dreaded letter in june, i initially contacted the clydedale and had a call from one of their "advisors". i was advised that as i was only in temporary employment they would contact me again at the end of september. no phone call,and wallop,an extra £200 taken from my account today. have just come off the phone and they have returned my £200 and have agreed to continue with my initial repayments as i have lodged a complaint.myself and my wife feel that we have been unfairly treated just like so many others and will fight this all the way.surely the bank must waive these rediculous charges .initially we felt very upset and disheartened,but, after reading about the success of so many on this forum, we now feel a bit better. just hope this can be resolved.any help or ponters would be gratefully appreciated(not too clever on money matters) thank you

Skyerocket_2

thebigfella wrote: »

any help or ponters would be gratefully appreciated(not too clever on money matters) thank you

Hi Bigfella,

A few pointers:

Keep all relevant paperwork, note phonecalls (with names and discussion)

Formally complain to Clydesdale by phone and back up by letter

Think very carefully about accepting any offer from the Bank. If you do accept an offer at any stage, you will not be able to complain to the Financial Services Ombudsman.

Once Clydesdale have sent you a "final offer" letter you can complain to the FSO who will acknowledge and assess your case.

Be prepared for several months of waiting. Clydesdale should freeze your current payments until resolution.

Keep an eye on the forum here, some good news is beginning to come through.

Good luck!

birdsong247

Bigfella - make sure you ask them to hold the payments in writing until the matter is resolved - told us they'd do it and didn't.

Dollydebs_2

well so far am still at the mercy of the ombudsman making the right decision...I got notification and a phone call from the guy who is looking into my case last month but heard nothing since so called him again and he said he has been waiting for all the paperwork to come through from the clydesdale (surprise surprise they are using the old delay tactics) he told me he has now given them a deadline of 7th Oct (tomorrow) so keep everything crossed guys.

I wonder though if I will get a slight reduction and refund on my increased payments as the bank put them up in July by over £100 each month so surely if I get a good outcome these payments should decrease a bit if the shortfall is paid in full?

Maybe I am getting ahead of myself.....and just await their decision;)
great news from everyone who has got their shortfall paid! well done for sticking to your guns! :T
cheers for now
DD x

clairembs

We have just received a letter from Clydesdale offering us £1k for a shortfall of £7.8k - we have rejected this offer and are sticking to our guns and will now be logging our complaint with the FOS. I just wanted to see if anyone had any advice regarding information that we should provide to the FOS to assist in our case.

Thank you - Claire x

biffo_the_bear

You're lucky, we have a deficit of around £7800 and only got an offer of £500, which we of course rejected out of hand. The most infuriating thing for me was that the idiot who replied to our complaint and made the offer suggested that he thought it was 'fair'! I replied to them when rejecting the offer and asked exactly how an offer of £500 could be considered fair when their incompetence had caused arrears of £7800 to accrue! Needless to say they have not replied.
Regarding getting the FOS involved, you will need to complete their complaint form which can be found on their website. You will then need to send them the final correspondence from the Clydesdale/Yorkshire and any relevant information you have regarding the underpayment issue. When I originally wrote to the Clydesdale I asked them for a complete breakdown of such things as when the underpayments started, when they first knew of the problem, details of all payments made from the date the underpayments started, how much I was underpaying by etc. Have you asked for anything like that? If not I suspect that the FOS will either ask you to gather this information or possibly they will ask the bank to provide it for them, however if it is the latter I suspect they will delay things for as long as they can get away with so be prepared for some world-class stalling tactics. Fortunately I asked for all of this early on in the process so already had it to hand when making my formal complaint to the FOS.
I had a phone call from the FOS almost 2 weeks ago telling me that were in receipt of my complaint and that they were in the process of contacting the Clydesdale to ask for their side of the story so I await their next contact with interest and some trepidation. I am confident that only one party is at fault here, and that is the Clydesdale, but you never know how an independent person will interpret events, however I am heartened by some of the outcomes reported on this forum recently as I assume we all receive the same type of information regarding our mortgages eg offset benefits, outstanding amount.
Good luck with your complaint, and I'll post the outcome of mine on here when I receive it.

karen2209

Just to keep everyone encouraged.....

I have also been caught up in the Clydesdale bank mortgage blunder. After reading an article by Martin Lewis in the news paper I decided not to roll over and accept the increased payments.

First I wrote to the clydesdale to complain, and the offered me £350 compensation. I refused this and went to the Financial Ombundsman.

I got a phone call today from the Ombudsman to say that they would be advising the Clydesdale bank to cancel the shortfall in capital - as it was entirely their error (which is £3,500!). Also they said that this will be their standard approach to all similar complaints - so it looks good for those still waiting.:j

thebigfella

recieved a letter from the clydesdale yesterday with a final offer of £400. so, where do i go from now? a phone call and a letter to tell them where they can stick their £400 will happen on monday.and so,the long haul begins

Wulfrune

Ermmmm

It seems as though CB are dragging their feet with reference to canceling the over charges that they made against me. I noticed that the payments haven't reduced and what's more worrying was the letter I got from the FOS saying..... "They will contact you to sort it all out (they haven't yet) ... IF they don't, give it a couple of months and I'll chase them up"

So, it leads me to ask.... Are the FOS really paper tigers? will CB finally change my payments back to what it was prior to their c*ckup?

I get the feeling that this "victory" that I had may yet have another twist in it.

I will keep you posted.

Wulfrune

biffo_the_bear

Wulfrune,

I intended to post a link but this site won't let me, so instead, if you Google 'final decision by an ombudsman' you should come up with a link to a PDF on the FOS site. Basically it outlines the powers of the FOS, in brief, once they have made their final decision in your favour and you have accepted it, it is legally binding on both parties and the company MUST comply with the directions of the ombudsman, so I think your fears are unfounded. However if the Clydesdale's tardiness in complying is costing you money I would make sure that the FOS are aware of this.

Regards,

Jeff