Post Office - Terrible ongoing experience - advice welcome

wrcallar

I applied for a credit card in August with Post Office. During the application process I opted to transfer £3000 to my debit account, with the intention to pay off my overdraft. I didn’t realise at the time but the Post Office don’t transfer from credit to debit; unfortunately their automated system didn’t detect this during application so they tried to send it anyway.

The money never reached me so I called customer services, they explained the issue and I was advised that they will recall the £3k and that it could take up to 8 weeks. I was advised that in the meantime I should pay the minimum repayments so to not incur late payment fees and more importantly adversely affect my credit rating. I was promised that I would receive all my payments back when the £3k is back in their account.

I chased up every couple of weeks to see if there was progress. “Sir please wait the full 8 weeks” was a common phrase. Fair enough.

8 weeks passed, still nothing. “Sir we are not sure what has happened to the money, we are investigating it”:mad:

More weeks passed and they asked me if I would like to log a complaint and there’s nothing more customer services can do. I spent an hour relaying the situation (this was tedious, I’d gone through it 10+ times on thephone already). I verbally logged a complaint and was told it would take 8 weeks for the complaints team to assess it!!!:eek: Oh great, I’ll pay you for another couple of months repayments whilst you do nothing then!!!!

Sometime later I check up to see how the complaint is progressing and to see whether they found their ‘lost’ money. “Sir no complaint has been logged, would you like me to log a complaint for you?”. (I’m really frustrated by this time and the customer service rep has to earn their money whilst I tell them what I think of their customer services.)

This time I log the complaint via email so that I have a time stamp. I call up to ensure that the complaint has been logged and the yconfirm. :T To much frustration they won’t let me speak to the ‘customer complaints team’, despite being told previously they would put me straight through once I have logged the complaint, until I have been issued a complaint reference number. It’s been weeks now and I’ve been issued nothing.

So, here I am, 5 months later, hours on the phone to customer services tediously explaining the issue to incompetent staff over and over, £400 in repayments down (and counting) and this has still not been resolved. It’s quite painful sending a company that is struggling to locate money they lost even more money… all for nothing and only a 'promise' that it'll get returned.

I’m a level headed guy and can take quite a bit of stress before I crack, but with remortgaging looming a month away and credit check websites telling me I’m ‘dependant on credit’ (because it shows I’m 3k in arrears), I’m starting to lose my cool.

Am I wrong to get stressed!? Should I wait another 8 weeks whilst ‘the complaints team’ file my complaint and sit on it for 8 weeks, probably then to be told the complaint was never logged correctly and I need to start again?...

I’d like to stop paying them and walk away, but I’m £400 invested and would rather not have missed payments logged on my credit score.

Feels good to vent, all advice appreciated.

Cheers

puwer98

Try sending this to the mail on Sunday, they seem to help people

glentoran99

go to the FOS

glentoran99

and stop paying them!! credit file can be corrected when its sorted

wrcallar

Just checked their website. It say's the company has 8 weeks to sort the issue. I'm thinking the PO will argue that the 8 weeks starts when I made the formal complaint (the one that actually got logged!) which is also why they have quoted me 8 weeks. Grrr

glentoran99

do it anyway and give your orginal date, also I would call the post office and report the 3k as fraud, I certainly wouldn't be repaying them any money that I didn't get

CLAPTON

glentoran99 wrote: »

and stop paying them!! credit file can be corrected when its sorted

extremely bad advice.

glentoran99

CLAPTON wrote: »

extremely bad advice.

so your advising the OP to continue to pay money they don't owe?


How exactly is it bad advice?

CLAPTON

glentoran99 wrote: »

so your advising the OP to continue to pay money they don't owe?


How exactly is it bad advice?

Once the OPs credit records are updated with failure to pay, he will have trouble getting any kind of credit (mobile phone, Utility credit account, current a/c , CC etc)

To reverse the adverse credit listing may take months and months and can be very stressful.

Maybe you have personal experience saying this is easy?

System

Go to the ombudsman 8 weeks after your initial complaint i.e. When you first complained about the missing money.

If you can afford to, I'd continue paying the minimum plus £1 as they can just sort out the interest etc themselves.

I ditched them several years ago as they are fairly disorganised and they appear on here regularly with issues.

GingerBob_3

CLAPTON wrote: »

Once the OPs credit records are updated with failure to pay, he will have trouble getting any kind of credit (mobile phone, Utility credit account, current a/c , CC etc)

To reverse the adverse credit listing may take months and months and can be very stressful.

Maybe you have personal experience saying this is easy?

This situation highlights the fact that CRA files are nothing short of blackmailing tools. Effectively the system says "you must carry on paying money you don't owe otherwise we'll put you on a blacklist and you'll have to go through hell and high water to get yourself off it". Nice one!