Old, closed Barclays account showing up as defaulting?

_andrewstewart

A few months ago I signed up to analyse my credit score and was shocked to find that Barclays were saying I was defaulting on an account (to the tune of £906). This was my account set up as a child aged 8, and which I went in store and closed the summer I went to university (2007) and withdrew the small amount in there (leaving the balance at £0), prior to setting up a student account with Natwest.

I queried this with Lowell, the debt collection agency, and asked them to look into it. I've just received this reply:


"Unfortunately due to the age of the account, the client Barclays are unable to provide you with documentation for this account.

I can only provide you with the information that we hold and that is that your account was sold to us by the client due to an unpaid outstanding balance, which you remain liable for.

As a goodwill gesture I am able to offer you a 15% discount to bring this matter to a close and this would reduce your balance to £770.47.

Please be aware, by accepting this discount this will show on your credit file as ‘Partially Satisfied’ which will reflect that the balance was not fully repaid.

Please let me know your thoughts and how you wish to proceed with this account

I have stopped collections activity on your account for 7 days for you to get back to me.

Please ensure you contact me within this time to prevent your account being passed to our collections department for further activity."

Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can proceed? Are they essentially telling me they have no evidence I owe it, but they are demanding I pay it anyway?

Quimoi

The response is Lowells talking nonsense - what they mean is that they (Lowells) either don't have any details and are too lazy to find them out from Barclays or they do have them and are too lazy to send anything hoping that you'll just pay up instead.

What is the default date registered on your credit file?

You will be able to get more details of the account (e.g. statements showing the balance, charges, letters sent by Barclays) by sending a subject access request and that would normally be your first step but if the default date is close to six years old then I'd probably just wait for it to drop off the file - not really worth the hassle.

_andrewstewart

Default date is 25/09/2009 - two years after account closure - but it's showing it's defaulting every month with Lowells so won't that just continue?

Quimoi

Each monthly update is just reflecting the current status of the account being in default. That will continue until six years from the default date (i.e. September 2015) when the account will drop off your credit files and future searches will show no record of it.

Up to you whether you are happy to wait until September for it to go away or whether you want to argue your case with Lowells.

If you decide to fight them then my suggested first step would be to send a subject access request to find out where the balance came from and to see what documentation Barclays have. If it is all charges then you should be able to get the default removed.

_andrewstewart

I think I'll just hang fire until September, hopefully that will be the end of it!

Thanks for that - really appreciated.

Quimoi

No problem.

You might find that Lowells become a bit more pushy now that they have had contact from you and have your current address from your CRA search but no harm in ignoring them unless they start threatening to issue proceedings and trying for a judgement against you. If that happens then you would have to start fighting it.

redux

I'm surprised this firm has lamely refused to provide any information to justify their claim.

Do you have old bank statements from around the time you closed the account?

If not, can you ask Barclays for copies?

rizla_king

redux wrote: »

I'm surprised this firm has lamely refused to provide any information to justify their claim.

I'm not. They are complete chancing con merchants in a lot of cases.

Complain and take them to the FOS.

_andrewstewart

No statements I'm afraid. Must have moved about 10 times between then and now and wasn't a very organised student. If they do get more pushy I'll go down the subject access request route