Will I ever learn?! Surely they have to do what they say they will?

hedgehogreturns

Hi all! I've just had what seems to be another slap in the face from MBNA , and it seems I'll never learn !

After my husband got made redundant , and money became tight , we didnt bury our heads in the sand , we spoke to all of our creditors.

We were put on a payment arrangement for our Virgin card because we could not afford the monthly replayments. To do this, we had to send them a breakdown of our income and expenditure. They lost it. In the mean time , they passed our account onto a debt collection agency called GVI. GVI asked us to send them another I + E form. We did so . Eventually, they telephoned us , and we set up a direct debit to leave our bank account on the 2nd of every month, when we knew the funds would be there. We paid the agreed amount every month for 6 months and all went well.

In August , MBNA sent us a letter saying that because we had been paying well on the arrangement that they were 'relieving us of our obligation to immediately repay the arrears accrued' whilst we had been under the arrangement. We just had to telephone them, and this could be arranged.

I made a mistake. I contacted GVI instead of MBNA because we had been dealing with GVI in the past. GVI took an extra debit card payment over the phone in order to seal the deal, and for some reason we had to set up a new direct debit , for the same amount , to be taken out of the account on the same day. We did all of this, and had a sigh of relief as things seemed to be picking up at last.

On the 20th August , a direct debit left our bank account to MBNA. We hadn't yet been paid and the money wasn't there, so we became overdrawn and were charged for it.

We contacted MBNA , and they agreed to refund us the money they had taken and pay our bank fees as the payment they took was in breach of the direct debit guarantee. During this same conversation with them, they told us that GVI had no authority to set up any direct debits anyway, and that they advise us to only communicate with MBNA , and that if we recieve any communication from GVI , to tell them that we are dealing directly with MBNA and not discuss anything further. The Direct Debit set up with GVI was cancelled , and we set up another Direct debit , to be taken out on the 2nd of every month. Again, a sigh of relief.

Today , GVI telephoned us so I told them what I was advised to, and contacted MBNA directly to find out why they were trying to contact us.

It turns out , when I cancelled the D/D GVI set up , MBNA have to recieve confirmation of cancellation from my bank before any new D/D can be arranged. This means that the D/D I arranged on the telephone with MBNA in August was void, and the payments have not been made !

I feel so stupid for just trusting that these people do what they say they will on the phone. I should have learned by now. I wish I'd chased up on it all, looked for these payments on my bank statements, but I'd just assumed they they would have been paid

I'm now straight back to the beginning , 2 missed payments with interest and late fees added on. Because these payments have been missed, my arrangement with MBNA has been cancelled, and I have to start right back at the beginning, sending in another set of I+E forms to try and set up a new one. All because I trusted that the direct debit I arranged with MBNA wasn't actually set up.

Surely they should have known that the new D/D would be void? Surely they should have advised me at the time to wait a few days before setting up a new one? Are they really allowed to mis inform people like this and hold no responsibility ?

Or am I just being unreasonable ?

Stephen_Leak

Where your money is concerned, trust no-one (except to screw up and/or screw you). Also believe and/or assume nothing (except that they will screw up and/or screw you).

However, from the circumstances, you should be able to create enough doubt and uncertainty in their minds, to enable them to convince themselves not to dig their heels in.