Old CC debt - do I owe this or not?

Bumbalena

Good morning everyone. I am hoping you will be able to help with my query.
I have an old credit card debt with Santander which I defaulted on in 2011. There is a balance of £7000 on it. I am currently attempting to 'get my house in order' so on Monday I phoned Santander with the intention of asking what they would accept in full and final settlement of the debt. The chap I spoke to was able to trace my name and address but said that my account details had been deleted from the system! I asked if I had any outstanding debt to them and he said "No, you don't owe us any money"!
I don't believe for a minute that my debt has just been written off so my first thought was that they must have sold the debt on. I haven't received any letters from Santander about this debt in over 2 years and have never had any communication from a debt collecting agency so I decided to pay Equifax the £2.00 fee for my credit report to see who owns it now. My credit report lists it as outstanding to Santander.
Where do I go from here? I want to get this debt off my credit report but how can I clear it if Santander no longer have any trace of it? Has it really been written off?
Your thoughts would be gratefully received.

agrinnall

Very unlikely that they would have written it off so soon. And obviously you do still owe the money, but if Santander really don't have a record of it then it may indeed be impossible to actually pay it off.

If you didn't have the money to pay it then keeping quiet until 2017 might have been a good move. But if you now have the ability to pay it (although Santander might not be prepared to settle for anything less than the full amount) then it is probably worth pressing Santander to either confirm that there is no longer a debt due and to update the information provided to the CRAs, or to look harder and find the details of what you do owe so that you can clear it yourself.

Superheavy

Does your credit report list the account number or card number on it by any chance? If not, have you ever made payments to that card from your current account? If so, you'll have had to enter the card number to make the payment that way. Once you have the card number, I'd take that back to Santander, as they may have more than one profile for you. If you've moved in the last few years, it is also worth checking with them to see if they can find the card linked to an old address.

I'd be sceptical about 7k being completely written off too, it might be worth asking them to confirm that in writing for you. That will probably get them to have another look and they'll find it has been transferred or is with an internal collections team.