Barclays overdraft issues

Newdiamond

Hi all,
Haven't posted on here for a good while having sorted out my own issues a few years ago now, another issue arising is my husbands overdraft facility with Barclays. He's had the overdraft approx. £5k for about 20 years now. It wasn't an issue for many years as he had a good salary etc, when he started a business our income dropped and I took over the paying of bills from my account. We paid £100 per month into his to reduce the overdraft for the last 5 years. As you can imagine in 5 years it reduced by about £700. Last year, we were suffering some financial hardship for about 3 months and as a result we didn't pay into his account for the 3 months. Barclays withdrew the facility and has now left us with a debt of close to £5k which they want paying asap. I have to stress this was a purely voluntary arrangement, Barclays did not request that we pay £100 per month.
We approached Barclays 4 years ago now to say our income had reduced significantly and we were keen to pay off the debt we asked them if could they help with the interest rate at all, basically we got a no. We've got a lot of letters too and from Barclays over the years and have now complained to the FOS as they've started bully boy tactics, collection agencies etc. Throughout this we have said, we want to pay it back but we need to come to some arrangement, they have ignored every letter we've sent and just demanded full payment. My husband spoke to them today and they pushed for him to take out a loan to pay it off but I've said no as I want to see what happens with the FOS. My point being, we have voluntarily paid into his overdraft, there has been no written contract that we must pay x amount into the account every month, even when we couldn't pay for 3 months his account did not exceed the limit.
Has anyone experienced similar issues and what generally would be the next course of action from Barclays perspective? I'm up for fighting them about the matter as they've been less than helpful but of course this is ultimately my husbands decision.
Thanks for taking the time to read this.

allybee101

Didn't want to read and run. No personal experience of overdraft being called in, but currently paying mine off.
Banks tend to have a bad habit of closing off overdraft facilities and demanding immediate payment if there isn't money going into the account regularly.
If you're going through FOS then stick with that to see what the outcome is. Would recommend corresponding with bank in writing so you have a clear record of all discussions.
Are you currently making any payments to the overdraft?


Best of luck with it, I hope you can reach an affordable agreement.

BillJones

What is the substance if your complaint? They do have the right to withdraw the overdraft whenever they want, for whatever reason hey want, so the removal of the service itself is not something that you have a right to have reversed.

Similarly they have the right to ask that it be repaid in full, so that on it's own is not something that the ombudsman will tend to find fault with.

What did you put in your formal complaint to Barclays, and what was the outcome of their complaints procedure?

Newdiamond

The basis really of the complaint is the complete unfairness from Barclays. We've done all our correspondence via letter but have always asked to come to some payment plan based on our income and outgoings which they've ignored. I appreciate that they can call in the overdraft at any time however, as Barclays have been aware of our situation for a number of years now they have been completely unwilling to compromise and this is the basis of our complaint. We've written 10's of letters in the last year to a number of people within the organisation including the Chief Exec to propose payment plans etc but they've all been ignored. We simply get standard letter demands for full payment. Yesterday they even asked us if we had any assets we could sell, which we don't as we rent and our cars are worth more in scrap value. I just want to know really, where we stand in terms of making a payment plan to them? As they are refusing to entertain the idea. We don't want to take a loan to pay it off, which is what they're pressurising us to do. We also had no warning from them that they would be withdrawing the facility, again another reason for our complaint.

thecassman86

Banks are entitled to withdraw an overdraft facility without warning - you have to think; it's their money really. I think you could argue that Barclay's have been unfair and a bit immoral when it comes to "pulling the rug from under you" but they've not actually broken any rules. The terms of an OD are that it can be retracted whenever they like for whatever reason they like.

They should be a bit more helpful on the payment options though, i agree with you there. But again, this will all come down to the specific agreements of your particular overdraft facility - i'm not sure it's something that you can argue with unless you feel they've broken a specific clause of the T&C's.

Essentially, arguing that it's unfair won't get you anywhere - you need to have a specific argument that they've broken a clause somewhere.

I hope you get somewhere with it though, i wish you the best of luck