Help!! Discovered "dormant" account £1800 charges

DCFC79

ceh209 wrote: »

As it was 8 years ago that was before the current account switching service started, so I presume this was just a manual 'set up a new bank account myself' switch? And you never requested to close the old account?

What the hell is a tech pack anyway? And did you have/use this when you were using the account?

I believe a tech pack is an add on for a bank account, pay x amount per month and your tech devices are covered, that sort of thing.

uncle_silver

Yorkshire_Pud wrote: »

If you kept the account open and it had a chargeable service attached to it I would think the liability for charges is yours not Barclays?

Its your responsibility to manage the account and you neglected it.

If you chose to have the service but now claim you never used it is that Barclays fault?

I wouldn't like to pay that charge but that's how these things work, a reason to be thorough with account management. If they should have been in touch then they may share some liability but why no statements? Everyone else gets statements either online or through the post. If you move address you have to tell the bank. They still had your number to send you the text. Registered for alerts? No?

Personal resposibility. Good luck sorting it!

There is personal responsibility. They should have contacted me and told me this is what happening.

YorkshireBoy

uncle_silver wrote: »

There is personal responsibility. They should have contacted me and told me this is what happening.

Was there, and is there now, an agreed overdraft facility on the account?

mgdavid

Something puzzles me.
You say you just 'discovered' this account from 8 years ago - yet you say you remembered the sort code and account number ? Something doesn't sound right here....

Shakin_Steve

mgdavid wrote: »

Something puzzles me.
You say you just 'discovered' this account from 8 years ago - yet you say you remembered the sort code and account number ? Something doesn't sound right here....

Well......he remembered his login details for this forum, and he joined eight years ago.

COIAHLGW

Could the OP claim that he asked to close the account over the phone, and nobody ever took action on it? Do banks keep phone records that long?

Ben8282

COIAHLGW wrote: »

Could the OP claim that he asked to close the account over the phone, and nobody ever took action on it? Do banks keep phone records that long?

Claiming that he had closed the account over the phone at the time sounds like a good idea.
However, I don't entirely believe that the OP has given full and complete information regarding this situation.
Assuming that the account balance was 0 when the OP opened his new account with Sanatader and no further money was ever paid into the account, it almost defies belief that Barclays would have allowed the situation to continue for 8 years. At some point when they realised that no money was being paid into the account, the account was not being used, the overdraft was increasing and attempts at communicating with the account holder were unsuccessful they would have defaulted the account.
Presumably the OP moved from the address on record with Barclays very shortly after changing banks in order to have never received any further statements and/or never bothered to check their Barclays internet banking ever again after opening the Santander account.
A more plausible situation would be that the OP abandoned an overdrawn account after opening a new account with Santander and that the 'random' text was in fact from a DCA and not Barclays at all.

eskbanker

Ben8282 wrote: »

I don't entirely believe that the OP has given full and complete information regarding this situation.

[...]

A more plausible situation would be that the OP abandoned an overdrawn account after opening a new account with Santander and that the 'random' text was in fact from a DCA and not Barclays at all.

Unsure if it's directly relevant but OP's only previous thread was also just over 8 years ago when he'd just bought his first property and was struggling with a £2600 overdraft, but obviously only OP knows the sequence of events in terms of when the account switch was and when the house move was....

Chalkius

Well the tech pack used to be £7.50, so 6 years of that is £540. And it's £9.50 at the moment, so rounding that to 10, 2 years of that is about £240. So round £780-800 will be pack fees. So that's then another £1000 in fees added on. Which I wouldn't be sure how to calculate as I don't know if OP had an agreed overdraft limit or not. If he did, I'd expect the amount to be much higher as at over £1000 you're paying £1.50 a day. Even two years at that rate would bring someone around £900-1000 in charges, which doesn't account for the years before reaching that mark.

Something doesn't quite add up.

I'd expect some form of contact to be made long before now if he was overdrawn without paying a penny back into it. Either from Barclays or debt collectors. If OP has moved since then, without informing Barclays they don't have an address to contact him on. Unless he's ignored letters.

OP needs to ask for statements and to check how that's calculated. Unless he specifically asked for the pack to be removed and went through the process, and then asked for the account to be closed, he's liable.

Lorian

The T&C's say the contract will end if you stop paying the fee for the pack.

What is your overdraft limit on the account?