I'm Sick but my Barclaycard dont care helllpp!

Taish23

To be able to find any help/advice on the situation I now find myself in would greatly ease the pressure that is bearing down on me. This is a bit long winded to start with but I have am suffering with a brain trauma (trauma not tuma!!) at the moment so have to go through everything for the begining with that in mind I also apologise for any poor spellings or english I may have missed.

Firstly just to build the picture I must point out that just over a year ago a person I worked for and good friend by lieing to me about some facts to do with our work caused me to put myself in debt. Basicaly he owed me several thousand pounds that I desperatly needed. To cut a long story short this person cut me off and went bankrupt ruling out any chance of my receiving what I was owed.

The majority of this money was obviously once in my hands intended for various billscredit cards etc. When I discovered I was to not get a penny and that I no longer had any work I contacted my bank and credit card companies to explain my plightA couple of personal advisors had suggested that I should myself go bankrupt as I had nothing and owed money I couldnt pay. This seemed a good idea to some but in my mind no matter what the reason for being in dropped in that situation I felt it was my responsibility to deal with it rather than dump it on society With the help of the majority of them I was able to keep out of any serious trouble via payment breaks and other financial suggestions. The only company I had problems with was Barclaycard at no stage were they willing to offer any help or suggestions and all they did was pile on latepayment fines. At one stage after speaking with them I was told that someone would contact me to discuss my situation but instead I received a letter from their debt recovery team looking to receive payments that would pay back these fines an the monthly payment I had missed to bring my account back down to its limit. This all annoyed me greatly as I had contacted them before any of this happened to ask for help or guidance but had received none which had then led to a missed payment and fines. At that time I just gave up argueing and made certain to resolve that balance to where they wanted it. I was able to obviously go straight to an agency to take on immediate work when all this took place an used my initial money to sort Barclaycard out so they were off of my back.

Since that time I have been paying my monthly minimum payment to Barclaycard. I concentrated on paying one part of the debt off at a time and just left other bits such as barclaycard on hold paying minimum payments. Over Oct through to Dec I made a mistake on either one or two of my payments by paying a couple off pounds less than required this was due to working away from where I live and not refering to posted statements for exact monthly payment a silly mistake to make and costly with Barclaycards charges but mistakes I have to own simple as that!

Now to my actual point! On Thursday 21st Dec an incident took place in which I sustained a head injury. To start with I seemed ok apart from what I presumed was standard concussion but due to a worsening condition and visits to A&E one being christams day I was admitted to hospital. CT Scans revealed some swelling on the brain and a slight bleed which led to my being kept in the hospital until Jan 4th. Whilst in Hospital I was in a lot of pain discomfort and a great deal of confussion due to trauma suffered to the brain. When I was realeased on the 4th I was told that in all likleyhood I would not be allowed to work for a minimum of 6 weeks from that date and possibly more. Upon reaching home the first thing I did was once again contact the bank etc. With not being able to work and having payments on different bits to make things were obviously going to be difficult. Due to the situation of the previous year I dont have any savings to fall back on. My own Bank and all but Barclaycard were very helpful and after a little sorting things out all came up with payment breaks etc until I am able to work again. They were all offered copies of signed sick notes/hospital letters etc jsut so they could see that my situation was genuine.

Being the 4th of Jan my first call was actually made to Barclaycard. The reason for this was that my monthly payment was due on the 5th of Jan. The money for this payment just over £80 I had already earnt an was in my back account so I had no problem paying this as with all of my Jan bills. Being the 4th of Jan my payment made online was obviously going to be slightly late so I made a call to Barclaycard to explain I had been in hospital and unable to make the payment but that it would be done there and then prob arriving a day or so late. I also informed them fully of my medical situation and problem with work etc at that time. All I was told that regardless of being in hospital my payment would be late an so I would be charged for that and that the charge and late payment would as ever put me over my limit incurring another charge! At that time I wasnt really shocked as this just seemed typical of them and I didnt have the energy or capacity to argue that I felt this was maybe unfair. My major concern was more that they were made aware of my situation and the fact that come my feb an possibly march payments I might not be able to make them. Basicaly I was not trying to get out of paying anything just saying I have a problem how can we get round this. The person I was speaking to said it would be noted an that I would be contacted at some time in the future about this.

For the last week I have started to worry as I have heard nothing from Barclaycard. Finaly today 25th Jan I put a call into them jsut to say I was mildly concerned that my next payment date was approaching but I had heard nothing from the name. The answer to this was simple.....there was no record of any of this an there were no notes on my account for anyone to read or contact me. I was obviously very dismayed and angry but realised that the more important issue was that I get them to now address the situation so I could avoid any more charges.

The response I got from the person I spoke to I have to say sent me into something of a rage an struck me dumb. I was told that there was nothing that could be done I was informed that all they could do was write little note to say I had called on my account this angered me as I said "you mean like the invisible notes of my last call" The guy then told me that Barclaycard wait until you have missed a couple of payments before anyone contacts you to see why? I said this seemed ridiculous to me as I would have more charges on my account for missing payments to which he said yes! but that at that point they may be able to work out a re-payment plan for this amount.

I just dont see how this can be fair or right! I have willingly gone to them today and nearly a month ago to inform them of my situation an to ask for some kind of help. Im not looking to escape paying anything Im just simply trying to avoid ridiculous charges and see if there is no way they can freeze my next 2 payments in light of my present situation. Basicaly all Barclaycard are offering is ignorance and more charges all of which combined with two missed payments would also show on my credit rating.

If anyone could give me ANY advice on this I would be eternally grateful. I have tried to be what I consider a good person by contacting them an pre-warning them when I could techically just not bother an say take me to court! Not only is this a financial nightmare for me as I have nothing but with a Brain Trauma Injury its very stressful and hard to deal with.

Yours gratefuly!

MSE_Martin

Have you simply tried calling up BC and politely explaining the situation again and asking if they can ensure its sorted. Do it nicely, without complaining and ask 'can you help me'

Lets see from there

Martin

Taish23

Firstly thanks for reading my message.

When I called BC today I was polite and calm. I talked the whole situation through with the person I spoke to from begining to end so he had all the facts. I didn't even complain to start with that I had received no response from my first call I merely told him that I had been waiting for some contact from them and received none. This was when he informed me that there were no notes to this effect on my account that anyone should contact me and confirmed that what had been said about the charges due to my late payment while in hospital were correct.

Rather than get annoyed at this point (despite seething inside lol) I just ok well lets try this again and then as mentioned gave this person the full history an current situation. I was then told repeatedly that there was nothing anyone could do and he couldn't pass the information on to anyone. He stated that the BC procedure was to wait until you have missed a couple of payments and incurred charges before anyone would address the situation. After about 3 times of talking this through calmly as I just didnt believe it I then did certainly get annoyed but not at the operative and in fact I even apologised to him if I then seemed cross but it was by no means aimed at him. He said not to worry as he knew my annoyance was not aimed at him an then said he was sorry but that that is all BC could do.

:O(

UK007BullDog

I think (and I might be wrong here) but I think they might have sold your account to a debt collector, hence them not being able to find any details of you.

An aquaintance I knew worked for a few months at a debt collector (huge company with dozens of employees calling people every day and hassling them, with teams called the Pittbulls and Rottweilers) and all the major cards gave them defaulted accounts to deal with. People who wanted to pay off their cards had to talk to them and they charged big fees as well.

Martin: When are you going to take those debt collectors on?

Taish23

Ah a small misunderstanding here I think.

They have my details as in account etc. But they had none of the details or info that I had given on 4th of Jan.

my head hurts lol!

Thanks for your reply as all help is great received an just knowing that the odd person has read it an shown some interest means a lot to me. Thankyou

MSE_Martin

Taish I'm going to be really honest here. Every time i try and get through you post I get a bit distracted and go elsewhere. Its a lot of text and it makes it difficult to see whats going on.

Please could you sum it up in a few lines


What's the problem?
What's barclaycard done or not done?
What do you want to happen?

barclaycard_barbs

Hi,

I work for Barclaycard - sorry to hear that our response was not very helpful. I have sent you a PM and if we can help, we will.

Regards

Ian

Taish23

Thanks barclaycard_barbs for reading my post. I will check out your PM an see what transpires.

Sorry to Martin and everyone that have struggled to read my post. I am suffering with a Brain Trauma Injury that makes making sense of things and writing these things clearly very difficult so I have to go through the whole thing writing it all out.

Sorry again for the long drawn out post.

Taishy

Taish23

Well ! Thanks to this amazing site I have been in contact with Someone who works higher up the chain for BarclayCard and who was very polite and open with me. :T

An apology was firstly made by this person and they are now setting the wheels in motion to see what can be done about this situation. It was pointed out that they couldn't promise that anything significant could be done but promised that I would be contacted Monday morning one way or the other.

Lets see what happens come monday!

MSE_Martin

Thank you to Barclaycard-Barbs - you're a good man

(and yes folks I do know who he is - and he is a Barclaycard bigwig)

Taish23

Well what can I say.........Hoooorraayyyyyyyyy!

As promised I was contacted by BC on monday and spoke to a very helpful and polite lady. BC have been able to make an arrangement with me that certainly takes off the pressure and aleviates any worry of charges or more knocks to my credit rating. Once again an apology was made for how their service had dealt with me to date.

Not having the greatest of faith in BC I was taken aback by this as for some reason the difficulties up to this point had suggested nothing would or could be done to help......but the conversation on monday with BC proved that to be very far from the truth. I may have had to make a bit of a fuss to reach the right spot but I can honestly say they have now dealt with me in a way that I am more than happy with!!

Oh and just to really catch me off guard I received another call from BC later on monday from the office of the big-wig, as Martin calls him, checkiong that I had been contacted as promised and dealt with an also enquiring as to how I was feeling!!

Well done BarclayCard! It has all restored a lot of faith in me.