NRAM broke Mort holiday payment! Advice?

Topazmine

Reposting this here as it's now become a different problem than my original thread under reclaiming:


Arranged a mortgage payment holiday for July/Aug with our mortgage provider NRAM. They took the money out yesterday anyway leaving us short for the month and causing several DDs and SOs to fail in the process (and charges of £15 for each failed payment to be applied by Smile - but I didn't find this out until today).

Called Smile yesterday to get them to cancel the DD for the mortgage so that no more payments would be damaged by the mistake.

Unbelievably, when I rang NRAM yesterday to get an explanation and tell them the DD had been cancelled, they told me that the mortgage payment holiday had not been processed and that unless we paid up this month it would count as a default!

I then had just over an hour-long (!) phone call with them in which they kept repeating the party line that all they could do at this point was apologise and file an official complaint.

When I asked what they were going to do to correct the problem they kept telling me there is nothing they can do!

Pointing out that bills that had been arranged weren't going to get paid if they took out the money didn't help.

They apparently have:
• no procedures to fix this problem (despite their acknowledgment that this has happened before),
• no way to prevent it from being listed as a default,
• no way to prevent it from turning up on our credit rating
• No intention of emailing any customers because they "dont have any secure way to email customers"
• Nothing they can do apart from apologise and file a formal complaint

At this point our choice is to default on the bills, or to default on the mortgage payment for this month which NRAM will then apparently list with credit ratings agencies! They won't even do us the courtesy of stopping that from automatically going through.

To say I was angry was an understatement. I admit that at the end of the 75 min call I dropped the 'F-bomb' which they then used as an excuse to cut me off. Because it's apparently okay for them to default on a contract with us, refuse to correct the problem, and give us a bad credit rating all due to their own incompetence, but it's not okay for us to swear about the situation.

I talked through the problem at length approaching it from all different angles with one of their 'customer service managers' (whom I was first told wouldn't be able to call me back for 24 hours!), but his job was very clearly to stonewall me.

It will be 5 working days before I get written confirmation that a complaint has been filed and up to 8 weeks before I get the bank's official verdict on my complaint!

I am beyond appalled and frustrated. The only times we have ever had problems with the mortgage payments have been caused by NRAM themselves. We have always paid on time and in full. Our excellent credit rating is going to be damaged and as far as I know we have no way to stop that.

Anyone have any advice as to what to do now?

TonyMMM

Topazmine wrote: »

Arranged a mortgage payment holiday for July/Aug with our mortgage provider NRAM.

When you made the application for the payment holiday - What notification (letter, email ?) did you get from them to confirm it had been agreed, and does it specify the exact dates ?

Topazmine

TonyMMM wrote: »

When you made the application for the payment holiday - What notification (letter, email ?) did you get from them to confirm it had been agreed, and does it specify the exact dates ?

We were told on the 19th June they would be sending us written confirmation. This never arrived, and I should have followed up on the lack of paperwork, but was so busy with work that I didn't notice its absence. (It should also be noted that given the timings as detailed below, any written confirmation sent to us from NRAM through Royal Mail would not have reached us until about today - 5 working days to process through NRAM, and 2-3 working days through RM.)

This was obviously a mistake on my part, but we did have a verbal (recorded by both parties - audio recording on their part, written notes on mine) contract.

The dates as agreed in the phone call were that the payment holiday was to be applied on the 19th of June to be processed in time for the 22nd of June cut-off date, so that the DD would be suspended for the dates of 01 July & 01 Aug 2012. This was confirmed at 15:55 on 19/06/12, with a customer advisor by the name of Paul. He told me the DD would pick up again on the 1st Sept.

As stated in my OP, NRAM apparently doesn't believe in corresponding by email so there's none of that. They won't even email confirmation that the complaint has been filed.

Thrugelmir

Topazmine wrote: »

This was obviously a mistake on my part, but we did have a verbal (recorded by both parties - audio recording on their part, written notes on mine) contract.

Was the adviser you spoke to on the telephone authorised to grant you a payment holiday?

Your written notes don't form a contract.

At the very least a full credit check would have to be undertaken. So unlikely that the process could have been completed within a 3 day timescale.


I've always told my staff to hang up if ever sworn at. Totally unnecessary. From a personal level I'm far less lightly to be receptive either.

The_J

I don't think a credit check would need to be done and a payment holiday could be granted with the click of a mouse button I expect. Clearly what has happened is that the chap has !!!!ed up.

Your problem is that you don't have the cash to account for this. A payment holiday should be a bonus, not a necessity. Do not miss the mortgage payment.

Topazmine

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Was the adviser you spoke to on the telephone authorised to grant you a payment holiday?

Your written notes don't form a contract.

At the very least a full credit check would have to be undertaken. So unlikely that the process could have been completed within a 3 day timescale.


I've always told my staff to hang up if ever sworn at. Totally unnecessary. From a personal level I'm far less lightly to be receptive either.

The payment adviser was absolutely authorised to grant a payment holiday. This is the way NRAM has dealt with this in the past.

I fully understand my written notes don't form a contract, but they are a recording of the verbal contract, as is NRAM's own audio recording, and in the UK a verbal contract is still binding.

Good for you for telling your staff to hang up if ever sworn at. I'm sure that approach has resolved no end of problems rather than letting them spiral out of control... Oh wait, no, sorry. Other way around.

It is possible to talk someone down off a cliff when they're angry and hanging up on them is not the way to go about it. Nor is it the way to regain any lost trust or hope of resolving the issue. There is also the problem with this approach that in many cultures around the globe swearing is not considered to be the big deal it is here and if you're going to do business with people from different backgrounds you might just have to learn to cope with their difference in attitude. They may have in fact been swearing at the fact that they just tripped over the dog while walking around talking on the phone.

I would never swear at someone in the usual course of things but this was 75 minutes into a phone call with a customer services manager who did nothing but deliberately prevent me from finding a solution and by the end of it he was deliberately provoking me in order to get a response so that he could get rid of me, so clearly he knew what he was doing there.

There is also a vast difference between being sworn at and just swearing out of frustration and as someone who has worked no end of customer service jobs I can tell you that if you can't handle someone swearing out of frustration then you should be in another profession - one in which you are not dealing with customers at all.

picardygirl

NRAM told you they would send you written confirmation ..... you didnt receive this, this should have set alarms bells off that it hadnt been actioned ......... i personally wouldnt have relied on the payment holiday til i had received it in writing, if thats what i had been told ...... how NRAM have handled it in the past, is irrelevant IMO, they used to be Northern Rock and handled a lot of things differently!

I understand your peeved, because you assumed it had been processed, yet you hadnt received that in writing ..... human error, unfortunately this happens in every industry!

As for the swearing, i would of also put the phone down on you, swearing is the ultimate no no !!! Regardless whether you kicked the dog whilst walking round the house on the phone ... no excuse IMO. If the customer services manager swore at you, what would you have done? Put the phone down, no, i doubt it, you would have took the complaint higher and reported them for abusive language. Ive never worked in call centres or such like, but surely they must have guidlines if a customers swears or starts being abusive ..... whatever the protocol round the globe is for swearing i dont know, but in the UK someone going to do a days work in a call centre being sworn at is not acceptable. Cant compare working for NRAM is like working for an organisation where somebody is threatening to jump of a cliff ...... they are not trained to deal with that, so dont think you should compare it!

They have apologised and will investigate, which may stop a default going against you, what more do you want them to do?

Dave_Ham

Long time ago, I worked at a bank in East London and I was more worried about the clients who did not swear at me...!

Seriously, I feel for the OP here as it comes across genuine, not sure swearing was a good call but sure we have all been there.

Lets not turn the thread into to swear or not swear, but try and help get this resolved.

NRAM are a disaster, numerous posts on it and we all know.

I suggest you resolve the issue by borrowing from family, elsewhere or if credit is tip top as you said from another bank.

Do not miss the mortgage payment.

Try and get the payment holiday for next month and put a complaint in writing in the background, which you can take to fos after 8 weeks if still not happy...

Good luck

Topazmine

Dave_Ham wrote: »

Lets not turn the thread into to swear or not swear, but try and help get this resolved.

I suggest you resolve the issue by borrowing from family, elsewhere or if credit is tip top as you said from another bank.

Do not miss the mortgage payment.

Try and get the payment holiday for next month and put a complaint in writing in the background, which you can take to fos after 8 weeks if still not happy...

Good luck

Thank you, Dave, for refocussing the discussion, and giving helpful and thoughtful comment.

We will look into where else we can get money for paying the extra bills for this month.

There has been more discussion with NRAM and it turns out that because they have filed an official complaint on my behalf they had then automatically cut off the payment holiday application. So as per your suggestion we have now applied for one for Aug/Sept. It will be interesting to see if they manage to complete the paperwork this time.

We are also investigating our options to see if we can move away from NRAM after the complaint procedures have been dealt with.

Thrugelmir

Topazmine wrote: »

We are also investigating our options to see if we can move away from NRAM after the complaint procedures have been dealt with.

Much will depend on the reason for requiring a mortgage holiday.

Personally I would expect formalities to be made official with paperwork. As presumably your partner is named on the mortgage as well. So would need to approve the request as well.

Dave_Ham

If you can move from NRAM, then do it.

I have taken on new clients with existing NRAM mortgages and they all tell different horror stories...

Rate wise you will also better off, just stay close to your Experian and Equifax credit files in case they try and report a late payment..

All the best