Credit card - no statements for 8 years

Northants_Simon

Out of the blue today I received a phone call from a credit card company saying they hadn't managed to collect the direct debit this last month. I had totally forgotten about this credit card as it was from over ten years ago, apparently they had been collecting a small minimum payment from one of my bank accounts all this time but it had bounced last month (it is an old bank account I haven't used for ages but had left money in).

I moved address 9 years ago and wrote to my lenders and banks to change address which they all did but for some reason these carried on sending statements to my old address for a while until they came back as undelivered and then they stopped sending them all together (This is what they just told me on the phone). So they haven't sent a statement for over eight years. They had my telephone number, email address and mobile number but have not been in contact until today.

Question is would the debt be statute barred in this case or does the fact they still collected payments (unknown to me) mean this does not apply?

Arleen

Statute barred applies only to debt that cannot be collected anymore, so for example if it went into default over 6 years ago. But since you were keeping up the card in good term through all those years (with exception of, for some reason, not getting correct address with them), then that is not an option.

glentoran99

No it wouldn't be statute barred as you've been paying them, although you may have recourse to claim interest back on the period they didn't send statements

Northants_Simon

Thank you, that's great. So how would I go about reclaiming interest for the time they haven't sent statements. They admitted on the phone they turned off statements some 8 years ago. They aren't being that helpful though as they won't even tell me the account number.

Arleen

Northants_Simon wrote: »

Thank you, that's great. So how would I go about reclaiming interest for the time they haven't sent statements. They admitted on the phone they turned off statements some 8 years ago. They aren't being that helpful though as they won't even tell me the account number.

That is really a long shot. The reason you are not getting statements was because you didn't provide them with correct address, not their fault. If you can prove, with actual hard evidence, that you did notify them about your move, then present that to them and say that you are willing to negotiate rather than going to ombudsman/ico with a formal complain.

Northants_Simon

I did provide them with the address and I do remember that. Proving that might be more difficult though. However they knew the mail was being returned to them from my old address and they had all my contact details - phone, email and mobile, but never made any attempt to contact me to find out why.

Arleen

Northants_Simon wrote: »

I did provide them with the address and I do remember that. Proving that might be more difficult though. However they knew the mail was being returned to them from my old address and they had all my contact details - phone, email and mobile, but never made any attempt to contact me to find out why.

I understand that it sounds like "they should've given me a call and get the address", and that would be the right thing to do. But sadly they don't have to, and it's entirely on you to make sure that they got the right address (although if you could prove that you did deliver them the address change and they dropped the ball processing it, you would have a chance), and lack of statements coming to your new address should have made you triple check that they processed the new one correctly.

You can still give them a call and try to negotiate. For example offer to settle the account in full, right now, but in exchange they will drop the total by X amount and not report the missed payment with the CRAs.

In their defence try to imagine that there must be large amounts of people who forget to do that every month. Now they had to call everyone, hope that their phone is up to date, that they will then pick up and then provide them with the right address. It becomes pretty high expense, especially when multiplied by all those people.

glentoran99

They could have got his address from the CRA's surely

Thrugelmir

Northants_Simon wrote: »

I moved address 9 years ago and wrote to my lenders and banks to change address which they all did but for some reason these carried on sending statements to my old address for a while until they came back as undelivered

Did you have mail redirection in place for a period of time?

boo_star

glentoran99 wrote: »

They could have got his address from the CRA's surely

As they were being paid up until recently there was no reason to.

They may have blocked the card but as there was still a balance, they'd just continue collecting the DD.

Ben8282

9 years ago you changed address and informed the credit card company of this but for some reason the change of address was never actioned and statements stopped.
So it appears that:
1. After moving house you immediately forgot about the existence of this credit card account with a debit balance.
2. You did not check your bank statements for 9 years to notice the existence of the direct debits.
3. You did not think to contact credit card company to question non-receipt of statements for 9 years.
Instead 9 years later, you want to blame the credit card company for not contacting you even though you had 9 years to contact them.