HELP with barclays

grady

Hi guys,

I'm new here so apologies if i'm in the wrong forum etc but really needing some advice.

My hubby has had a barclays overdraft since april 2007. over the last (at least) 3 years he, under my influence, has called and asked to cancel the PPI on this a number of times. I remember that on the first occasion he was advised ok thats all been done for you.however i believe there were at least 2 phonecalls made in which they advised they had cancelled. on another occasion he was advised he must go to a branch directly to do this. - which he never did, he works a lot of hours and away from home mon - saturday most weeks so it got left then forgotten about. Anyway may/June last year he had some issues with his bank card only working at certain ATM's so called the contact centre and was treated very rudely, so we spoke with their complaints department, he gave permission for me to discuss and as i was speaking with their complaints i thought it would be good to include my concerns that his PPI had not been cancelled as they'd advised, and that having to go into the branch to do so was not convenient or fair. We have a letter dated 14/6/11 from barclays complaints department advising that it can be cancelled over the phone. Stupidly we made the assumption they would have cancelled it as it had been stressed so clearly that we did not want this PPI. I noticed 3 or 4 months ago there was still a DD for £7.60 payment protection being deducted each month. so nagged him to call. To which he was advised his PPI was cancelled and this DD was not to barclays. He did not ask who it was to, so i have again nagged him to call and find out. he has done this today only to be told.... it is barclays overdraft PPI!! and that he must go into a branch to cancel. He told them he knows this is not true, explained we have the letter stating otherwise and the whole situation. The guy he spoke to said he can only see 12 months back on the account so my hubby should go into the branch where they can see further back and do more. so to my knowledge this still is not cancelled.

So i need advice on what is the best approach to take now. I know we have been pretty stupid the last few years with this. i have no note of when or how many times we called. would it be best to do a SAR? this would include the account notes from each time he called right?
Should we go into the branch, or put our complaint in writing? i dont honestly know whether he was mis-sold this PPI, but based on how much he has been lied to and the fact that they have used underhand tactics to keep us paying this should we go for a refund of the full amount from the O/D being opened? also on top of that for the last few years (since they introduced it) we have pretty much lived in the £500 reserve... we accrue about £100 charges each month for this which only makes it harder to get out of. based on the fact that he has paid around £500 in unwanted ppi, do we have a leg to stand on with regards to the reserve fees we have paid? (ie if we hadnt paid this ppi then we'd be £500 better off which would mean we didnt need the £500 reserve) or is this just utter wishful thinking.

If you haven't fell asleep by now... thanks so much for taking the time to read this. any constructive advice appreciated. Want and need to sort out our financial situation and have no clue where to start

Moneymash

A few years ago I had an overdraft with Barclays of £100 not much I know but I did ask them on several occassions to remove this facility from my account which I assumed they had. It was only when I noticed on my bank statments some months later it was still there. I ignored it as I didn't need it but now years later it is up to £470 (I used it and increased it myself online when I needed it!) However, I too pay PPI at £3.76 a month. I would dearly love to cancel it but am worried they will remove the overdraft and request immediate repayment which I cannot afford to pay. As Martin says don't bank where you have debts.

Is your husband able to pay the overdraft back in full if he manages to cancel his PPI and they in turn cancel his overdraft?

Also, if he cancels his PPI and they let him keep the overdraft or increase it what provision does he have in case of emergencies?

grady

if the need arose the funds could be found. it would mean borrowing from family, which is a last resort, but it cant be worse than our financial situation at present. is it common practice for them to remove overdraft facilities if customers cancel their PPI?
My theory is if we are refunded the money he has paid in unwanted PPI, this would take us out of his reserve facility which means we would not be paying around £100 per month in charges for the pleasure of using the reserve facility and without those charges we could very quickly get out of his overdraft. this would have a snowballing effect on our finances and would greatly help us in getting out of debt.

Moneymash

I don't know if it is common practice to revoke OD if there is no PPI, although it doesn't look good if you are also using your reserve. However, they do have the power to cancel your OD at any time and take funds from any credits on this account leaving you very short one month.

Anyway first you would have to get them to cancel the PPI and then admit to mis-selling in order for you to get a refund.

Since you have an overdraft and a reserve with them. If the PPI mis-sell was upheld they could offset any refund to either the OD, reserve, or even any CC or loans you have with them.

You are also assuming you would get a refund of all the amount you have paid to date, that may not be the case.

If you can scrape the money together to pay off the OD if necessary why not put this money to the reserve instead, if that is costing you more?

Just some things to think about.

grady

thank you, Yeah i understand what your saying. We would absolutely be happy for them to offset any refund against the overdraft. We dont have any other credit with barclays. With regards to scraping the money together for the O/D it would be a case of borrowing money from hubbys parents, which for him to do that would literally have to be a case of us not having the funds to pay our rent/feed our kids. ie if the o/d was taken away and his wages were literally just paying of that and the charges.
hmm this getting outta debt business is hard :-(