Barclaycard

dragon2121

Hi,

I'm trying to claim charges back from barclaycard and have reached the point where they have offered the difference between £12 and the charges etc and wrote back accepting without prejudice the amount they had automatically put into my account and said would be proceeding to FOS and they wrote back saying they would investigate my complaint and respond by 21st Nov (3 weeks) and now they wrote saying they are still investigating and would responsby 19th Dec......can I just now proceed to the FOS as they are just delaying and delaying or do I have to wait for their 'final' response.

Thanks

Nikabella

I would be grateful to know if anyone can help me regarding the late payment charge from Barclaycard.

My partner received approximately 13 late payment charges from Barclaycard before I met him (pre 2005) & as such we have been trying to reclaim them. We requested a copy of the statements as Martin suggested, however, we have never recieved them & instead Barclaycard have made us an offer of £280.08.

As we still did not know how many charges he had received or at what amount we rang them & were told this apparently is a full refund for the 13 late payment charges plus interest. The lady informed us that the charges were £20 each as this is the most Barclaycard have ever charged (& obviously since then they have been reduced to £12). However, we were convinced that the charges in 2004 were £35 each. Are we wrong? I am happy to send off again requesting the list of charges incurred but this is obviously pointless if the £20 they have stated is correct as they reckon they are offering us the full amount back already.

Also £280 including interest seems low if the charges were £20 each as 13 x £20 = £260. So only £20 interest at 8% over more than 4 years? As we don't have copy statements then I am worried that Barclaycard could be fibbing to us & offering us less than the full amount. The letter they sent us was not very clear & the 2 people we spoke to told us different things! They have credited the money back to my partners credit card as well - but the account is closed!

Any help much appreciated.

militantconsumer

Did you send the £10 fee for the statements? And did they cash the cheque? They must comply with the Data Protection Act and provide the information.

After a few letters we got back all the charges (sorry, can't remember without checking at home if they were more than £20).

However, they have short-changed us on the interest and refused to investigate, so we have sent the claim to the Financial Ombudsman to get the rest back. We await the outcome.

Nikabella

Wow thanks for your quick reply!

I think my partner in all his wisdom forgot to send them a cheque & so it wasn't really there fault they didn't send out the statements. We are happy to send them another letter with a cheque to get the statements but obviously if they are correct & the charges were only £20 then it seems a bit pointless apart from to double check. Part of the confusion is due to the fact that the first person we phoned told us the settlement was only for the difference between the old fee & the new £12, whilst the 2nd person told us the settlement was for the entire charge which was only £20 though.

We thought that perhaps it may be worth accepting the £280 "without predjudice" & still requesting the statements so that we could chase a more accurate amount of interest off of them? We would probably have to threaten court action though or go to the FOS like yourselves I expect.

militantconsumer

They certainly only offer the difference figure at first before accepting the whole amount is unfair. Definitely worth paying £10 and waiting a few weeks in my opinion to double-check everything.

Yes, you can certainly accept the £280 "without prejudice" first.

Nikabella

Right, thank you I think that is what we will do then. It's not like £10 is going to break our bank.

Can we send off a letter accepting the amount so far "without predjudice" but including the £10 fee & asking for the statements also do you think?

I have to say even the £280 feels amazing as when I met my partner he had almost £10k worth of debt in default, I got rid of his debt management agency, Gregory Peningtons (the sharks!) & paid off all his debt for him in 2.5 years. So this feels like free money!

militantconsumer

Might be sensible to to keep the two letters separate as they will be dealt with by different departments.

Nikabella

Oh sorry, one more question! They have credited the money to his old closed account so when we accept the money "without predjudice" should we request that they send him a cheque or bank transfer seeing as we can't even see this money they have supposedly refunded! Or would you advise to leave it in the closed account in the meantime?

militantconsumer

If he no longer has a debt with them then they should send you a cheque. The statements will confirm if the debt is really 100% paid off.

Nikabella

The debt is definetely 100% paid off as the last statement we had a year ago was for 36p in credit so they kindly refunded us the 36p & closed the account. I think they hope if they credit your settlement figure to your "closed" account you might forget/not dare to ask for a cheque lol.