How to deal with MBNA

honeybee_6

I have been trying since May to organise dmps with my creditors with eventual success ,except for MBNA who do not respond to any letters I send and continue to charge etc.
I have continued sending the reduced parment I have offered , but of course the debt is now growing.

Yesterday they left a horrible answer phone message (despite my continually writing and asking them not to phone-as my elderly mother lives with us and is not aware of the debts)saying this was all my problem and they had tried everything to get in touch and help me and this was very , very serious.

They then sent a similar email saying they would reduce the amount by £50 if I resolved this and talked to them.

I sent an angry email back as I am so fed up with trying to sort this out with them-but I do not want to speak to them.

Any ideas of how to handle them?

I keep sending the same letter and payments-but no responce.

I do not at the moment want to approach payplan etc , but guess it may come to this.

Also I want to claim back some of these charges but would I need to do this as a seperate letter.

Any advice appreciatted.Thankyou.

Leixlip1

I had a terrible time with them phoning me (changed number) and them trying to get me to take out a secured loan to clear the debt??!!
I kept paying them the pro-rata payment offered, I'm doing a self-managed dmp but took the advice of National Debtline and quote my client number in all (registered post) correspondence and in the end invited them to take me to Court as I could prove all of my other creditors had accepted the payment offerd and had frozen intetest and charges. The result was that MBNA accepted the payments offered and agreed to freeze interest and charges for an initial 1 year period.
I had no fear of going to court (and told MBNA this) as I used to represent local authorities in certain types of County Court cases and was confident that my offer of repayment was reasonable/the best I could make.
I think you "just" have to be strong and not let them intimidate you; keep making the payments offered; and keep writing to them. Once they realised I wouldn't be frightened into taking a secured loan or be frightened of the threat of legal action they became fairly "amicable" - I'm sure that will change when my 12 months is up!!

CRANKY40

You probably need to start reporting them to people - I've seen links on here telling you who to report them to if they keep phoning when you've told them not to.

They're a bunch of nutters. I threatened to report them because they kept ringing me trying to offer me things - I didn't and don't owe them any money (free gift at airport credit card), and in the end I told them to close it as they were ringing every couple of days.

MKDon

Hi HoneyBee,

This link to some letters provided by RAS and others should put a stop to the calls. There is also advice on what to do if the calls don't stop

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.html?p=6879013&postcount=4

JillyOJolly

MBNA are awful to deal with, but there are a small few on here that have had success in dealing with them. I have written a formal complaint to them regarding their customer services practice and after a delaying tactic by them I am threatening to take them through the OFT. The guidelines on customer services have been breached with me at least 70 times over 3 years and I have now asked for all communication to be done in writing. I have paid regularly over this time through DMP, they have rejected ever offer (even though always above the minimum payment) and have never frozen interest.

They cannot intimidate, bully, harrass, mis-sell inappropriate resolutions to financial difficulty. It may take a firm letter to their complaints department and I hope you manage to get on an even keel with them.

orpheus

Hi Honeybee,

Yes, my experience with MBNA is similar to that of others posting here. Of all my 11 creditors they were by far the worst - even phoning my office because I had been daft enough to put my work number on the credit card application.

I managed to get them to stop calling my office through just one letter sent by recorded delivery to their head office and copied to the financial ombudsman and my local OFT.

However they continued to call my house & my mobile several times a day and told me to take outsecured loans, to re-mortgage and also to ask my friends and family for loans and financial assitance, they also lied and said they could get money taken directly from my wages without explaining the lengthy process which might lead to that - at the time, as a newbie debtor, I was terrified and spent weeks of sleepless nights.

After a few weeks of this, I took advice and each time they called I read out a script to them telling them that I was recording their call and I repeated over and over again that I WAS prepared to pay as much as I could afford and would keep sending that amount, even though they said they would not accept the reduced payments (- they did!). I recall that they were calling from Northern Ireland?

I became like a robot, just repeating the phrases over and over again and eventually stopped answering the phone unles I knew the number.

That was two and a half years ago. Eventually they gave in and I have been paying them a fixed amount as part of a Debt Management Plan through Payplan.

I read from your email that you have been putting off contacting Payplan (or CCCS, CAB). WHY???? It changed my life. The best phonecall I EVER made. They took over everything. Dealt with all the creditors, answered their letters etc. All I do is make 1 payment a month to Payplan. They share it fairly amongst the creditors. All I have to do is send in an annual Income and Expenditure form. Any letters from the creditors I send to Payplan and they deal with it.

When problems have come up and creditors have called/written to me, I just tell them my Payplan case number and they contact Payplan instead who deal with the query.

A lot of the creditors seem to be genuinely pleased I am with Payplan - it seems to 'legitimise' my situation and they mostly 'back off' and deal with Payplan straight away. Many of the major finance houses actually contribute to funding Payplan! I know from this website that other have benefitted equally from the CAB/CCCS. Think about it!!

Don't let MBNA wear you down.

Good Luck - Orph.