Partial settlement, 3 years on found debt still on my file (barclaycard/mercers)

interceptor1983

Hi, im a bit stuck, the only useful information so far seems to have come from the FSA and they seem to be the only organiseation that actually seemed concerned with my story.
I'll start from the beginining back in 2002 when i was 19 i applied for a barclaycard, putting down 16k a year as i'd just gone back to my old company to take on a job of 16k, barclay car gave me £4550 limit (not good thing for a 19 year old!!!) anyway the department i was ment to be working in got delayed so the company gave me a different postion on a lower wage, i already had about £7500 of credit with 3 companys by7 this point, as you can imagine being young the credit card soon racked up, I payed it off once then spent it again (i wasnt very good with money back then) i spent several years struggling with the amount of finance i had racked up when i was younger and was usually working 55+ hours a week to try and keep afloat i had a minium payment of £113 a month which all went on the interest and occasionally a late payment charge, i 2006-2007 it had got quite back and i didnt help myself by trying to ignore it, my barclaycard got upto £5500, £1000 over its limit, and i got passed onto mercers but barclaycard kept the account open, still adding interest of about £100 a month and a £12 late fee. Eventually they offered me partial settlement by mercers of just under £4k so i made an agreement with my mum to take out a loan for me as i couldnt get one so i could pay them off which i did. with the exception of capital one that was all my finance cleared unfortuantly at the cost of now owing family members the money.
I'd always found mercers/barclay car to be quite helpful compaired to other companys namely Capital one who after being unemployed for 6 months and owing them only £425 defaulted me rather then wait 3 days for me to get paid and pay them £225 payment to put the card back within its limit, that was until a week ago.............
When I first got experian i didnt pay any attension to my barclaycard file as i had not long settled it, i hadnt been on there fora while as i locked my self out (too many paswords to remember lol)
When i got back onto it the other day and did a new check i found that they had changed the format and on the front screen it listed 1 outstanding credit of £1495, strange i thought so i looked deeped to discover that my barclaycard file wasnt settled and had been active for the last 3 years listing me with 36 late payments when i had taken patial settlement and as far as i was aware owed them nothing, they had never wrote to me to request payment, never foned.

Heres my predicament what do i do from here?

Have they commited fraud against me?

How much damage have they done to my credit file?

and last of all can i claim compensation forthe damage they've done plus the hassle and stress this is causing me getting it sorted?

As far as i was aware i'd cleared all of m past mistakes and had made a new start i ONLY pay cash for stuff now and if i dont have it i dont buy it, now i find that its come back to bite me in the !!! all over again, plus i dont ahve the mercers paperwork anymore but have been told by the debt helpline to check the details of the settlement

Any help on this or if anyone else has had this problem would be greatly welcome

Fsa seem to think wrong has been done gave me some numbers to ring, office of fair trading just palmed me off to debt line who jut told me to check my paper work and write to barclaycard, so dunno were to turn

Tixy

Partial settlement is used by the credit reference agencies when you agree to a short settlement and so they have not received all of the money back (its also often used for IVAs for the same reason). Its considered fair for them to show this on the report so that other potential lenders will be able to see your short settled this account.

Do you have a letter from mercers/barclaycard that confirms the amount you paid was to be a partial settlement?
Does the account actually show as partially settled at all on experian? If not the I would write to barclaycard enclosing a copy of your partial settlement letter and asking for them to update your credit file.

Its not fraud against you -its just a mistake that they hadn't updated your file.

interceptor1983

I dont have the letters anymore i kept them for a while but got rid of them a while ago when clearing out all my old paperwork, ive found out i still have the old bills just not the mercers stuff
The account is listed as still being active which a balance of £1495 and still showing me having a credit limit of £4550 it also lists that in the last 36 months they have listed 36 late payments against me.
Even if i get in touch with them to sort it out they have done damage to my account namely i tried to get an overdraft with my bank during this period, ironically barclays bank!!! and was refused when they checked my credit file durng that period between barclaycard being payed off and appliying for the overdraft i had no late payments against my name and my credit should have been going up as i had postive direct debits coming out my capital one card was paid everymonth due to not being able to get the overdraft it led to capital one card getting into arrears and led to a default notice now being on my account as they wouldnt wait 3 days for me to get paid when i got a job but then sent me a settlement figure the next day for less then what i owed anyway, pointless excercise if you ask me.
Due to the damage done i feel i should be entiled to some compensation and this damage cannot be reversed now

Tixy

You cannot be certain that this issue is the reason you did not get your overdraft, even if it had correctly shown as partially settled then it is quite likely this would be sufficent for you to be turned down. It is certainly not barclaycard's fault you defaulted on your capital one card. The chance of you getting any compensation would be very close to zero.

Hopefully what you may be able to do is correct your credit file now, although not having the relevant paperwork could seriously hamper this - in fact without paperwork to prove that this debt has been partially settled it is perfectly possibly you could be chased for the balance on the account - its why people are always advised to keep all paperwork for at least 6years (I have seen instances on here where people could not prove they had settled an account and ended up with a CCJ and having to pay the remaning account).

I think the only thing you can do is to write to barclaycard, give details of the date you accepted their partial settlement offer and made the payment and ask them to update your file to show it is settled on your credit files. You could also consider checking equifax and callcredit to see if either of those do happen to show it as settled, which would give you more chance of getting the experian entry altered by barclaycard.

In future its probably worth checking your credit file at least once a year for issues/errors/evidence of identity theft (which may have meant in this instance you would have realised whilst you still had the relevant paperwork).

interceptor1983

Well decided to phone barclaycard and have it out with them, to which they confirmed i didnt owe them anything, that i shouldnt have any late payments against my name and that they would have them all removed and the account listed as partially settled, which will be done over the next few days and they are going to write to me to confirm this has been done and they have given me the address to write to so that i can make a complaint, so see what happens from here.
Does anyone know how the 36 late payments would have affected my score and if they remove them will the score be back to what it should be or will it still be lower because of that?

Hax

The Experian reports list the last 36 months of account activity. So, if the account was "closed" in 2007, then it would show the status from 2004 to 2007. Double-check the dates listed to ensure that you're not just seeing the last 36 months of activity whilst the account was "live" as opposed to activity from the last 36 months.

interceptor1983

no it listed the most current one as being this month on the 7th

interceptor1983

thats were i got confused the first time round as i assumed they were the ones from before i settled, but when i updated it htis time i realised different

xX_TeacH_Xx

This story is all too familiar, and now we find ourselves in much the same position. My girlfriend was a carbon copy of that story - £5400 in 2009 took a partial settlement of 50% - £2700 odd. Pressed for F&F and they obliged, or so we thought. Heard them confirm it on phone but no paperwork now. All fell quiet.....

Today, contact regarding a cheeky PPI claim. They admit to £2500 in missold PPI. Brilliant! oh wait........

"Please accept this offer of £2500.00 for your PPI.....As you still have a financial commitment to us, we will deduct this from your existing balance."

Nice little statement:

We owe you £2500, you owe us £2700, wheres our £200?

Devious ba$tards.

chanz4

thats the prob with full and final, if money was ever written off any reclaim is taken

xX_TeacH_Xx

chanz4 wrote: »

thats the prob with full and final, if money was ever written off any reclaim is taken

Please explain.