Unreasonable Barclays?

christines_2

Hello everyone this is my first confession.

I started a Barclays graduate account way back in 2001 with a £2000 overdraft that I used. Once I got a job, started to pay it back.

Cut a long story short, it was passed to a debt management company in 2008 where I paid £20 a month. Last month I defaulted this monthly payment, they wrote to tell me, gave me 7 days then wrote to say they've passed my account to the solicitors and are now demanding I pay the remaining balance in full.

I've maintained contact with the debt management company throughout; changes of address, change of name, asking for balance of account etc and also wrote to say I'm not in a position to pay back the whole amount.

Does anyone out there know what my options are??

Cheers

Tixy

I would write back, apologise for missing the payment and state that either your circumstances have not changed and you can still only afford £20 or that your circumstances have changed and you can now afford x per month.
If you can afford to it might also be a good idea to offer to pay an extra £20 this month to cover last month.

Just make sure you keep making payments every month. Hopefully they won't take further action rather than send out some official sounding letters. If they did decide to take further action (ie court proceedings) then you would have to tackle that at that stage and fill in the court forms to ask to pay in installments.

dancingfairy

Hi Christine - to be honest you would probably have had the same experience with any of the other banks/building societies - they are there to make money at the end of the day and expect you to abide by the terms and conditions of the account.
Having said that if you can't pay for whatever reason then you can't pay.
I would suggest maybe getting in touch with one of the free debt charities that Martin recommends such as National Debtline, CCCS or even pop into you local CAB.
It may be that your best option is to pay what you can afford each month, now certainly your creditor(s?) aren't going to like it and could in theory take you to court but if you genuinelly can't pay you can't pay.
Going through one th debt charities will help you take a step back from the situation and hopefully not feel threatened by any creditors. The debt charity will explain to you that by making part payments then your credit rating will suffer (if it hasn't already) but that you could end up with a CCJ against you name if a court decides you owe the money and haven't repaid it. You can then ask the court to set the repayment at the level you have shown you can afford via a budget - the debt charities will help with this.
Before you speak to one of the debt charities you may find it helpful to complete the SOA calcualtor (it's a budget sheet basically) at makesense of cards website and have a look through it to see if there are any areas that you can make cutbacks. If you wish to post it here then people will have alook and see if there are any areas they can suggest you can cut back on.
Apart from paying what you can afford via a dmp (debt management plan) the other options include a DRO, IVA, or bankruptcy but these are a lot more drastic options and with the info you have provided so far it does not indicate that these will be a better option for you but do chat it through with a debt charity if you feel one of these may be better. I would stick with one of the above debt charities though as there are many, many debt companies out there that range from the good to the bad and the downright ugly and there is a lack of regaultion when it comes to who can provide debt management advice so to avoid being taken for a ride or stung I would stick with the above if possible.
Best of Luck
df

redpete

christines wrote: »

Unreasonable Barclays?

Unless the debt management company are part of Barclays then they (Barclays) are not being unreasonable, they've already given up on getting all their money back.

christines_2

Hi Tixy - I've already written that letter! I take your point of offering a further £20 though...I'll write again and try that. The last letter I got was a couple of days ago from their solicitors so maybe I'm on the road to court proceedings already.

Thanks

dancingfairy

Having seen what Tixy wrote whislt I was writing my epic post I would have to agree - your best bet is to attempt to get back on the plan if at possible. Now at this stage you do not know whether the company do intend to actually take you to court or whether it is indeed just hot air and empty threats -unfortunately it is difficult to know what a company may or may not do - some just seem to send empty threats but until you actually receive court papers don't panic.
Best of Luck trying to get back on the plan.
df

christines_2

Redpete you're absolutely right - I suppose the 'unreasonable' bit was more towards the debt management company demanding a full repayment after defaulting one £20 payment....

christines_2

Thanks Dancingfairy. I've got a number for my local CAB it's just getting hold of someone!!

Half of it is keeping your head together and thinking through the best options. I'll write another letter today with a cheque for £20 and hope to get back on the plan.

How I wish I'd won £161m on the lottery.....!!