Legal advice

Stacca1986

My partner has suffered substantial financial hardship, not to mention a great deal of stress and anguish from an emotional and practical level, as a result of a colossal error made by Barclays Bank plc.

Without sharing all the finer details at this stage, the crux of this error is that despite settling a debt to Barclays on 21st March 2012, my partner has been subjected to a further four years of bad credit as, not only did Barclays Bank fail to remove the default from his credit file. But in addition, by there own admission, they mistakenly went on and mis-sold said debt to a collection agency in July 2013, a year and four months after it had been legally settled. This created an additional default on my partners credit file, further damaging his credit score.

Needless to say, the negative impact such a poor credit rating has had on my partners life over the past four years has been immense. Aside from the emotional turmoil of being unable to provide for himself and his family, the strain on personal relationships and the consequential impact on his health and general state of mind, there have also been many, many financial implications - for obvious reasons, lenders wouldn't even contemplate any application he made for loans, credit cards, etc as he was always considered an undesirable borrower as a direct result of his elevated credit risk.

Examples of the difficulties he has faced:
- Unable to secure any finance, loan or credit during this period, either personal or business (my partner is self-employed so this also impaired his business growth);
- Unable to obtain a credit card; and couldn't even pass the credit check for a standard bank account and so was limited to a basic bank account, designed for those people with poor credit scores, that would not even allow for an overdraft;
- Unable to secure a mortgage, and therefore lost out on purchasing a property for his family to live in;
- Unable to rent a property and had to move in with his brother;
- Unable to purchase a car on finance;
- Struggled to obtain a mobile phone contract.

Despite years of distress caused by disputing this 'non-existent debt' with his local Barclays branch and the subsequent collections agencies - the debt was sold on to a further two collection agencies - my partner was left with no choice but to eventually pay a full settlement of the alleged debt of £1499.93 on 21st January 2016 to prevent it being sold on any further.

Upon seeking advice from a Financial Advisor, he made an official complaint to Barclays last month, and after a full investigation they admitted liability for their mistake.

Over the course of the last month Barclays have taken measures to ensure that their adverse information be removed from my partners credit file, along with that of the collections agency and as a direct result his credit file has now been restored to 999 out of 999 - the most favourable score in the eyes of any lender. He has now also received a full refund of the £1499.93 in relation to the 'debt' he was made to settle in error.

As a consequence of their error, and upon 'advice from the Financial Ombudsman Services', Barclays have offered £500 redress for the 'distress and inconvenience caused'.

My question is, given the negative impact their error has had on my partners credit file and the subsequent suffering he has been made to endure over the past four years as a direct result of their mistake, is he entitled to more substantial compensation? And if so, what would be the best way to go about it?

Many thanks for taking the time to consider my partners plight, and appreciate any advice you may share.

Thrugelmir

Stacca1986 wrote: »

the crux of this error is that despite settling a debt to Barclays on 21st March 2012, my partner has been subjected to a further four years of bad credit as, not only did Barclays Bank fail to remove the default from his credit file.

Settlement of a debt does not result in a default being removed nor the related history until six years has past. In this regard the credit history is accurate.

DCFC79

Lenders can't see the credit score, as long as the history is correct then it's as it should be. If there's any inconsistencies that's when he needs to get it out right.

CKhalvashi

Just a default won't show on a landlord credit check, so wouldn't have affected the renting of a property.

Regarding the car finance, assuming he's got a £1000ish car, then the cost of the car would be 4 payments at £250 a month, meaning that if he got a year from each car, getting nothing back from each, he'll be £2000 up every year. This should be compensation enough IMO.

TheDebtinator

The credit score of 999 is utterly, utterly meaningless. I wish people would realise this, it is said enough on these pages.

If your partner actually defaulted on the original debt then the lender has no obligation to remove the default notice on the file. Reading between the lines that seems to be the case here.

The rest of it, sure the selling of a settled debt is naughty, though I aren't too sure what you're expecting to receive out of this as the original default would still stand regardless, so your partner would in all probability still suffered issues with obtaining credit etc for a period of time.