Bank negatively marked credit file after Limitation Act letter

bracken1011

Can anyone give me advise please, I'm desperate for help with this.
Over ten years ago, I have a current account with Barclays. I used it a little, I was a mature student at the time. It had an overdraft balance of about £40 on it for a while. After some time of me not using the account, they sent a letter to say the account was closed and, I think, the overdraft written off. Anyway, I heard nothing more from them. This was 9 years ago. I was at the same house for about 2 years after that last letter.
However, last October, I got a letter demanding I pay £174 to Barclays. I actually thought it was a scam to start with and ignored it. I then got another letter. In the end, I thought it must be to do with the original bank account. I looked up my rights and sent a template letter quoting the Limitations Act 1980 in them iddle of November 2010. I stopped receiving demand letters. I did receive a letter though from Customer Relations saying they couldn't investigate my complaint as I hadn't put the sort code on my letter. I didn't understand this - the demands had stopped so they must surely have matched my letter up?
I didn't worry about it until today when I checked my credit reference file as I am intending taking out a new mortgage in the next few months. I was horried to see that Barclays had entered that I had arrears of 6 months plus going back 15 months! Considering they didn't start writing till last October, 3 months ago, this is bad enough. What makes it worse is that they updated it just after I sent my letter to them quoting the Limitation Act.
Can anyone give me any help with this? I feel so powerless.

dunstonh

the demands had stopped so they must surely have matched my letter up?

an assumption that is probably wrong. They may have just diarised to chase for 3 months.

I did receive a letter though from Customer Relations saying they couldn't investigate my complaint as I hadn't put the sort code on my letter. I didn't understand this

It means that from the information you supplied they could not identify who you were or what bank account you were referring to. Effectively closing the complaint until you give them that information.

If you want Barclays to investigate your complaint then you need to go back to them with the details so they can locate the account in question.