Settling Credit Card

emma3003

Hello all,

Just looking for a bit of advice for my parents.

The other day they received letter from their credit card company to say that they are due a refund of £10,000 due to a banking error.

At the moment, they owe the following, all with the one bank:
£14,000 on Credit Card A
£1,500 on Credit Card B
£3,500 overdraft on their joint current account

My father is in his 60's and in very poor health. They moved over to Ireland almost 10 years ago and bought a house there, but my dad continued to work in England. He stays with family here and then travels back home to Ireland every 2nd weekend where my mum is living.
It is unlikely that he will be able to work more than another few months. At which stage, he will have to return permanently to Ireland for medical treatment. He does have a private pension, but it is totally worthless and so his only income will be whatever money he can get from illness benefit. My mum is also out of work at the moment due to health problems, so they will be living on a pittance.

My question is... do you think the bank would consider using the £10,000 refund they owe my my parents as a settlement for all the outstanding debt, totalling about £19,000?
They would love to clear all this debt, as there is absolutely no way they'll be able to pay anything when he finishes work and it's causing them a lot of stress thinking that they are going to have debt collectors chasing them. They have enough on their plate as it is, so this would be a huge relief.

we need to put all of this in writing to the bank, so just wondering if that would be a realistic request.

Thanks
Emma

thebritishbloke

Have they contacted their bank using the official (not on the letter) phone number to confirm that this letter is actually genuine and not a phishing letter?

If they've always kept up with repayments, it's unlikely the bank will accept the offer. You could always try and use the reasoning that your father will not be working anymore due to medical reasons within a few months time, sometimes they'll do it compassionately.

Failing that, you want to get as much debt shifted onto 0% and pay off the highest interest debt first.

emma3003

Yes, I rang their bank today and spoke to someone. They have referred it on to just double-check that it isn't an error as she said it was an unusually large amount.
I won't go into the ins and outs of it here but seems legit.

That's what i thought - unlikely they'll engage while my father is still making min payments. However, I'm hoping that they'll have a bit of common sense here and understand that once he finishes up working, he won't be in a position to pay anything and he's going to default anyway and they'll get nothing if that refund money has been spent by that point.

We'll make a settlement offer anyway and see what they say. If they refuse, then my parents will just have to default on the debt and go from there.
Would just prefer if we could clear this for them now to take some pressure off them. My dad isn't fit to be working at all and has only continued because he these debts to pay off.