Barclays Bank charges - refused payment from me

PinkKiwi

I owe Barclays £147 in bank charges which I feel wasn't my fault. I paid off an overdraft of £500 in full and they added a bank charge which made the account overdrawn again and so they kept adding bank charges until it got to this amount.

I moved house straight after I paid the full amount off so obviously didn't get the letter to say there was a bank charge, rang barclays to let them know my new address and they said I had to write to them with my new address which I did. Nothing ever came to my new address and by this time I had a joint account with my partner so nothing ever went into my old account. I thought I would keep my old account just incase anything happened and it was a proper current account which I can no longer get (I have the basic green bank card with Halifax now). Months later when visiting my old next door neighbour the new tenant handed me a bundle of letters from Barclays which is how I realised there was so many bank charges.

I wrote to them and offered to pay the first bank charge added, as if they would have took notice of my letter stating my change of address I would have known straight away. But they ignored the letter. They cudnt answer my query over the phone they kept saying I needed to put it in writing even though my previous letters had been ignored.

I finally got a phonecall years later from the debt collection department and I offered to set up a payment plan but he insisted they wanted the money in two halves which is a bit difficult for me. I explained it would be better to pay £25 at a time or £35 at a push but they refused.

So now I don't know what to do. I'm working on clearing my debts as I want a good credit score but if they are refusing to accept payment I have no chance. Its just come to me actually that if I put a bit to one side every week I could save the full amount and ring up and pay in full.

But the annoyance is that at least I offered to pay. And why should I pay the rest of the bank charges when they couldn't be bothered to acknowledge my change of address?

MrsTinks

Can you prove you sent any of the change of address letters? Did you send them recorded? Otherwise chances are that your file has been marked as gone away without notice - NOT a good thing on your record even if you clear the default...
Hindsight is obviously 20/20 vision but in future always get your post forwarded... it really is worth the money.
Otherwise I guess your only argument with them is if you can prove that you asked for the account to be settled in full and they worked out any charges due to be applied for that month - if you'd closed the account that would have been done usually but as you didn't obviously it was up to you to monitor the account...
How many years ago was all of this and do you know who owns the debt now?

chappers

Just pay them the £25 a month you offered.

PinkKiwi

chappers wrote: »

Just pay them the £25 a month you offered.

They refused that.

DS4215

Tell them you have reconsidered your offer and send them a cheque for your new payment rate - £20.