Do I have a claim

Namaste40

I had a Sainsbury's loan and got into difficulties. Had a mental breakdown, lost my job and marriage. Eventually set up new payment plan with Sainsburys which was honoured. In 2019 I was informed that payments had been missed however it was there error. My payments were not being credited to my loan account. For my trouble I received £100 and told that Sainsburys would not be chasing for the rest of the money but if I wished I could continue to make payments. Of course I did not. However in March 21 they sold the debt to Cabot Financial Services and letters were sent to the address they had on file, an address I had left. By pure chance I went to see the new owners who passed on the mail. Next day contacted Sainsburys who enfactically told me that the loan had not been sold and there was a 'mark' on my file that meant it could not be sold. I had to at their request email over the letters. They duly apologised and sent £300 for the distress caused. However in amongst all of the above is the levels of service. ...Letters allegedly sent in June 2019 never received ..Bank didn't know it had sold the debt ..I've been told twice that the balance has been written off. However what this means to a lay person and the bank is different. What the bank means is that they will not chase for outstanding money but cannot guarantee that an 'error' won't occurred again causing further distress. ..if if is sold in error again how lucky will I be not to return to the old address and collect post. ..what if I hadn't got the Cabot Financial Services letters requesting payment. Would i eventually had a CCJ or bailiffs?
I have the Ombudsman looking into it, however is £300 acceptable compensation 

MovingForwards

Yes, because what ifs haven't happened.

Have you provided Sainsbury's with your new address and received written confirmation they are not pursuing the outstanding balance and it won't be sold off? 
If so, hold on to that letter.
If not, ask them for it.

peteuk

So I would complain to both Sainsburys and Cabot. 

However firstly I would change my address with Sainsburys and ask them to write to the new address with the position of the loan and any complaints on file (including written correspondence with regards to the outcome of the investigation)

I would also speak to Cabot, inform them that Sainsburys are dealing with this and ask them to kindly return the debt to Sainsburys.  

Now here's the kick, Cabot may not have brought the debt, they may be working on behalf of Sainsburys.  If they have brought the debt then the joke is on them as you will have proof that the debt is nil due to the correspondence from Sainsburys.   Equally you can then complain again to Sainsbury's for selling your details on with a settled debt.  

sourcrates

Cabot are debt purchasers only, they do not manage debts for anyone else.

Ringing up a creditor and asking about the status of your loan account, would seem a pretty easy way to find things out, however, the decision to sell a loan portfolio, of which your debt may be a part of, is taken way above the heads of any call handler.

All they will know is what their screen tells them, more often than not it will be displayed as either "written off" "delinquent" or given some other misleading term, when in fact its likely to have been sold.

These mistakes are quite common with creditors, mainly because they all use very similar methods to dispose of bad debt.

The rule of thumb is that if it sounds too good to be true, then it usually is.

Batesy1976

Namaste40 said:

what if I hadn't got the Cabot Financial Services letters requesting payment. Would i eventually had a CCJ or bailiffs?

Maybe, but it didn't so there's not much point in asking a bunch of "What ifs."

I have the Ombudsman looking into it, however is £300 acceptable compensation 

Acceptable?  I'd be biting their hands off if I was offered that for such a trivial mistake.  I'm really not sure why you're involving the Ombudsman.  The impact to you is essentially zero, aside from a small amount of time spent getting them to fix the error.  They have acknowledged the mistake, seemingly rectified it and offered a generous amount of compensation.  I don't know what you expect the FOS to do?  They can't stop this debt from being sold again, nobody can, as nobody can 100% guarantee a mistake won't be made so it seems more like a referral out of spite than anything.