Barclays mistake nightmare and credit report / rating

looking_forward

Good afternoon ,

I had hoped this situation would be resolved by now but sadly it hasn't. Sorry this is so long. 

    Over the last 18 months we sold some funds from our ISAs and paid down some of our mortgage. We only had just under 4 years remaining but wanted to  lower the monthly repayment as I had only been working part time . This was done early/mid last year and appeared to be successful.  Then in October/November I was checking through some info on Barclays online portal and noticed our mortgage balance was incorrect , it had gone up. I called and eventually spoke to someone who said they would look into it and advise me. Nothing happened. Then I called again several weeks later and spoke to  a guy who confirmed what the balance should be which matched my figures.He stated he would get this rectified. Nothing happened , I tried to call up again but this was then getting near to Christmas and after several  queue waits of over 90 mins I gave up for the time being . Then on Christmas eve my wife got a letter from Barclays addressed to here solely , it had a statement showing arrears of mortgage £3,000 ( around the amount of the over-payments) telling her what it means and what she should do , accompanied by a leaflet  "problems paying your mortgage"  . I also checked mine and my wive's credit report , which showed november payment had been missed (it definitely had not) and our rating had dived.  I then called on Christmas eve and after an hour and a half got through to someone who said they could see what had happened and he would get things sorted and come back to me. Within an hour he did  and explained money had been not been correctly  allocated to our account , he stated he would get this done , get our credit files cleansed and offer me £100 as a gesture to cover the trouble - I declined.
      Please stick with me ,  this still goes on , we are now in 1st week january and I had received a call from a guy who "was handling our complaint".  He had all the details and was going to get everything resolved.  Then my wife spotted that her credit report showed a non payment of mortgage in December too (definitely paid)  and  her file was marked "delinquent"  - on that day I received a letter from the Halifax stating they wanted to cancel a credit card that I had had for years , I called them and eventually was told this was due to very negative information appearing on my credit report , I then checked my report and it was the same as my wife's . I was shell shocked. I  called Barclays over the next few days repeatedly and after hours on the phone spoke to a lady and explained she said the complaint was still being processed, there was a large backlog and they were dealing with high priority cases first. She did however agree to send me a letter out 1st  class explaining that although not fully resolved yet Barclays had made errors which had caused my mortgage to show arrears and also impact our credit files. After 10 days this didn't turn  I called again and after hours on the phone was given an odd reason that the letter had been held and that is why the letter did not turn up , I was puzzled ?? 
The next morning the letter arrived  in the post , inside it was another complaint letter with personal details for a chap in London . 
 I have presented my letter to Halifax and they are processing to hopefully keep my card.

      State of play today   -   nothing heard back from the guy dealing with my complaint , credit files both ruined  and mortgage still shows in arrears for nov  & dec. Mortgage balance has come down some but still incorrect. I have emailed and secure messaged but just get ignored.  Passed on the the Financial ombudsman but there have said they have huge backlog .   I think I have covered most of it.

How on earth can i get this resolved  before more damage is done ? any assistance would be much appreciated ,

just to say both our credit ratings were excellent before this  - can show history on experian if needed.

thanks 
    

[Deleted User]

Too early to go to FOS.

Escalate a formal complaint to Barclays. They'll then correct the data but it Sounds as if they're already on it. It may even already be fixed, bearing in mind you don't have a real time view of your files. Check for the late markers coming off.

looking_forward

Thanks for the reply ,it is a formal complaint and has been since last year. I opened a case with the FO in jan this year and had a holding letter to say they were very busy.   Whatever I do or say Barclays don't cal me back now  , I have checked credit files today , no change.

[Deleted User]

You'll need to wait for the monthly update, unless you're paying for real time.

sourcrates

Everything is moving at a snails pace just now with most people working remotely, its played havoc with the normal running of things.

Whatever damage has been done, it can be rectified, so try not to worry too much, although saying that, it looks like the Halifax were quick to react to it, and once a line of credit has been withdrawn, its hard to get it back again.

Wait for their final response, then escalate to the FOS and ICO if necessary.

[Deleted User]

I would maybe sum up everything you just said and put in a letter and send to Barclays. I would state that you would like them to resolve this but if it needs more time you would like updates in a reasonable time frame. I used to work for Santander collections and phone calls in my opinion tend not to resolve much when there is an error of the banks to be rectified. It sounds like multiple phone calls need to be listened to, credit reporting to be rectified, mortgage amount to be adjusted and also compensation worked out. I know it's frustrating but I had to wait for Barclays to resolve a complaint for me and it took 4 months and I received £700 compensation because of it.

looking_forward

Thanks for the replies . I appreciate it.

looking_forward

Update on this ,Barclays got our credit files updated in approximately Apr/May 2021 . Since then we have not had a full breakdown of what happened and how the mislaid money has been re appropriated. The mortgage balance now shows 2K less than it did , we believe the amount  should be 3K (this was also stated by 2 named advisors at Barclays) and Barclays have offered £300 to each of us for the inconvenience. The FOS have passed this on to us and said everything has been sorted and they agree. I have asked for a breakdown of what happened and how it was corrected - apparently there is nothing to show....
After what has gone on I asked Barclays for a DSAR and quoted specific dates so I could get all relative info on this , the DSAR arrived with mostly historic info and nothing relating to this. I have not agreed to close and accept this as I don't trust what has gone on here , but I am unsure where to go from here....     

[Deleted User]

If you think the balance is incorrect, you can check this yourself from your statements. But work from statement figures, not credit file figures.

With regards to the complaint, you can either accept the money and close the complaint or refuse the money. But you won't get an explanation of how the figures came to wrong, just confirmation that it's been corrected.

looking_forward

The statement now shows as correct - it has just been sent as a statement with no corrections or amendments, you would never know there had been a problem , but because of conflicting info from barclays and a strange drop then increase in our monthly payment I was hoping for confirmation. 

MovingForwards

Are you on a fixed or variable interest rate?
How much is the increase, just approx rounded figure?