Lloyds overdraft nonsence

drrat

Hi,

I have a had a problem with a DMP, basically The DMp was paying off an overdraft with lloyds, and when they believed the balance to be zero they stopped paying. Now it appears we have gone over our overdraft limit on this account.

Following advice I am writing them a strongly worded letter, asking for a breakdown of the account etc and threatening them with ombudsman.

Basically it seems they rejected the payment amount on the overdraft, whilst at the same time accepting the reduced payment on the loan I also hold with them. Which seems a tad contradictory.

What are the propects of them being reasonable about the charges they have been applying to this account over the past few years, without my knowledge? (without my knowledge because no statements or letters were received for years off them)

I am some what annoyed at this as it seems we have been paying with the belief our debts were reducing at a quicker rate then they actually have been, given we now owe more on this overdraft than we did 4 years ago!

Thanks in advance, anybody has a similar issue?

mozzyc

HI

Yes, we had a very similar situation. I can't remember the exact circumstances though.
Who thought the balance was zero, and how did they come to that conclusion. I did manage to get money written off for unfair charges.
Basically, the money we were paying for our overdraft and loan for quite a while, only went towards clearing the overdraft, and therefore we were getting all these extra charges put onto our loan. The whole thing had been set up incorrectly, and they accepted some blame for this. Mind you, I must admit, this was only after writing a strong worded formal complaint, and cc'ing into it the director of Lloyds and going to the FOS.

I had paid over £8000 on a £10000 loan, and after 5 years, the balance was over £10000 still.

Luckily, since my complaints, I am now with their inhouse dca, and all interest has been stopped, so I am finally clearing it.

Do everything you can now to get this sorted, or you could be carrying on like this for ages. Make a formal complaint (procedure is on their website) and follow it through.

drrat

Ok but its proving painful.

I just spoke to their collections department, in india it seems, so communication was not ideal.

He refused to undertsand my point.

Firstly he gave me an option to pay £50 a month, which I politely turned down.

I offered £20 as a gesture until I could get it sorted properly and he said OK, after indicating interest would be froze, he then went on to say £8 of the £20 would cover interest plus a £5 management fee!

He then said pay £2.41 and your account will be in order and I can continue to enjoy the benefits of my account?!?!?!

My balance is 502.41 on a 500 overdraft, exactly how that will resolve anything I do not know.

It was a huge waste of my time and communication was impossible.

mozzyc

Phonecalls in this case will get you nowhere. Believe me. Write the formal complaint letter writing down as many facts as you can about the history of the account. Roughly how much you've paid/been charged. Once you've sent it off to them (by recorded delivery), and you don't get the response you want, you can then take it to the FOS. Keep proof of postage etc so they can see you've chased it up with Lloyds already and followed the correct route of complaint.

Are you doing your own DMP?

Tixy

I wouldn't try to do anything by phone with them. Keep it all in writing.

Did they send you a statement of account yet?
Presumably they applied your DMP payments to the overdraft but didn't stop charges and interest?

Who ran your DMP for you? Did they stop making payments when they thought the balance was zero assuming that no charges and interest had been applied? Did lloyds ever send you or your DMP company a letter to confirm they had frozen interest & charges?

Usually before the DMP co stops making payments they get an up to date balance from the creditor.

Are you still in your DMP? if so can you not alter the natwest od balance to the new balance and then continue to pay them through that? That said if they haven't sent your or your DMP company any statements for more than a year then hopefully they may refund a lot of the charges.
Legally they have to send out a statement at least once a year I believe.

drrat

Its a CCCS run DMP, clearly they didn't get an up to date balance. they stoped paying back in July!

To my knowledge I have not received a statement in years, no idea if they have sent one to CCCS.

I have drafted a letter, I will amend it slightly then get it sent out, in the meantime they are going to be applying some pretty hight unauthorised overdraft charges onto the account.

mozzyc

drrat wrote: »

Its a CCCS run DMP, clearly they didn't get an up to date balance. they stoped paying back in July!

To my knowledge I have not received a statement in years, no idea if they have sent one to CCCS.

I have drafted a letter, I will amend it slightly then get it sent out, in the meantime they are going to be applying some pretty hight unauthorised overdraft charges onto the account.

Wow, that's quite a hefty mistake.
But they do need to definitely send you a statement at least once a year. Make sure they've got your correct postal address and write and ask for one. You should be checking this every few months to keep on track of everything. Don't rely on CCCS to do this, that's up to you to be aware of the progress of the account, and make sure everything's going according to plan.

And make sure you find out why on earth they presumed the balance was zero, did they have anything to go on to get to this conclusion?

drrat

well expect them to resort to the line, "Its my responsibility to keep track of the account balances", also "They informed me of Lloyds rejection of the plan".

I have no recolection of receiving a letter from them in this regard, but that doesn't mean it wasn't sent however.

As for Lloyds I am confident they have not sent a statement as I would have noticed we owed alot more than I thought! Also They should have correct postal address since they have started hassling me this month via mail.