NCO Default Applied Unfairly - What are My Options?

papper00

Hi all,
My debt story is a long one; basically in 2014 we had debts across cards and lenders totalling £20,000+ and entered into a DMP with Stepchange. Various defaults quickly followed and all but one are now removed from my credit file. The one that remains was applied by NCO, and I don't believe it's there fairly.

• I'd been paying them up to mid-2017 without issue. In July of that year we were handed a further debt by HMRC for overpaid tax credits, which was entered into the DMP.
• The offers to creditors were resent, most of them with lower repayment amounts than they'd become used to to make way for the HMRC priority debt. I was originally paying about £11 a month to NCO, and this became just under £8 a month.
• NCO started to send the same kind of letters I'd received at the start of the plan. The ones talking about arrears and threatening legal action. You know the ones. I informed Stepchange of this and was told to ignore the letters, as NCO were simply trying to scare me into making additional payments. They confirmed the recent restructured DMP had been sent to them.
• I tried to contact NCO directly to sort this out and only got as far as an automated payment system to clear the debt in full. I wanted to speak to someone about the situation and ensure they had acknowledged the resent proposal. 
• The letters eventually stopped, that was that.
• Fast forward to the end of last year where I decided to have a look at my credit report and start planning for our future debt-free (we're now under 2 years away, debt stands at just under £7,000). I found that NCO had recorded late payments for several months from July 2017 and a default was added in January 2018. I had no knowledge of this default, nothing in writing, no phone call.

Basically, NCO are now refusing to remove the default. I believe I'm entitled to fight them on this as I made every attempt to resolve the matter, informed Stepchange, tried to call, and did not receive a notice of default. I believe their behaviour is in contravention of several points in the FCA handbook: 
https://www.handbook.fca.org.uk/handbook/CONC/7/3.html

They're digging their heels in and sending statements of what was paid, claiming the agreement was around £11, and I underpaid for several months, therefore the account defaulted. Just wondering what are my rights here to get this removed? I'm pretty certain their failure to notify me of the default (they claim they did) is one issue, and they did not acknowledge the revised repayment offer. I was also unable to get through to speak to anyone. Various issues I feel that led to a default that could have been avoided (especially for the sake of a few quid a month!).

All advice welcome, thanks in advance.

sourcrates

Hi,

Unfortunatly anything but full contractural repayment, can, and usually does, mean a default will be registered against your account.

A creditor can do so after between 3/6 missed regular payments, makes no difference what arrangement you have in place.

The best you can probebly do is write and complain the default should have been registered at an earlier date, when you first got into trouble.

From what you say they have not acted wrongly here.

papper00

Thanks for the replay Sourcrates.
They claim the default was applied because my payment agreement with them (via Stepchange, original agreement in 2014) was for £11 a month and several payments were received at around £8 a month (which was the re-proposed amount following the addition of a new priority debt - HMRC). 

If I had known this would have ended up with a default, I would have offered to top this lot up by a few pounds outside the DMP every month. Unfortunately I received no notice of default and was unable to contact them. I also brought this to StepChange's attention and they advised me to ignore it.

I've read through CONC 7.3 of the FCA handbook and can identify three or four examples of  where I believe the NCO have failed to follow the rules. I can prove that my situation changed, and the additional debt being HMRC, qualified as a priority debt. I would have thought that NCO would have (like all other creditors) seen this and acted with better courtesy. It feels rather more like they saw an opportunity to needlessly smudge my credit report

I'm going to keep fighting it anyway, because this default will essentially prevent me from being able to move home until it's clear. If it wasn't there we'd have no defaults on the file by the time the debts were all gone. It's frustrating, because it could (and would) have been avoided if NCO had informed me properly or allowed me to speak to someone.

Again, thanks for the reply.