Bank Complaint

mlig

Hi,
This is my first post on here, but I wondered if anybody could help..

To cut a long story as short as possible, I took out an overdraft a few years ago, my choice, my fault. I was actually shocked when they agreed to it. My credit files weren't good, and I wasn't working and was a stay at home parent. The fees were totally unaffordable and I couldn't afford to live, kept requesting they increased the overdraft as I didn't know what else to do in order to afford food, and before long the overdraft was over £3000. I still wasn't working, my only income a bit of universal credit and child benefit. The fees were ridiculous, and I was struggling to afford life even without them. I'd taken credit elsewhere during this time as well, all high interest due to poor credit score. 

I know this was all stupid, but I made mistakes.

It left me struggling so much, I hunted the internet and the best advice I could find was to open a new bank account elsewhere, and wait for the first bank to default me and see what I could do.

Just before I transferred everything over, I phoned the bank for another reason, and asked them to stop the fees and give me a chance to catch up as I couldn't afford food for my kids. They refunded a small amount, maybe £50, something like that and said they'd do no more to help. They refunded this due to them not doing something they said they would, I can't remember what off the top of my head but I do have it in my records, a supervisor went back, listened to a call, agreed they'd not done as they said so gave me this £50. Towards the end of this phone call I was in tears and said you should never have lent me this in the first place. 

I said no more than that, and unbeknown to me, they treated that as an official complaint and investigated it as such. They sent me a final response 8 weeks later saying they'd done nothing wrong and that was that. They did include details about the ombudsman within it, but at the time I didn't realise that they'd treated it as an official complaint, and I didn't know what the ombudsman was, or what it did. I did lots of reading a few months later, by now by credit history worse than ever, and discovered that I should have taken my complaint to the ombudsman, but by now it was just outside the 6 month window. I phoned the ombudsman, they said they would have looked at it but couldn't because I'd missed the timescales involved. 

So since then I've sat and waited, its still on my credit file, and I'm just waiting to be taken to court for this huge overdraft. I don't begrudge paying what I owe, but I do begrudge the hideous charge that are on the overdraft and the fact that they wouldn't help me. But I want to be proactive. Can I complain again to the bank, about the same thing, or can I not because they took that as a complaint before? Is there anything else I can do here?

Thanks in advance for any help. And please be gentle with me, I am trying to sort things out..

sourcrates

Well I doubt it will go to court, if every bank took every defaulting customer to court, they would be backed up for years and then some.

No, what usually happens is the debt will either go first to the banks own internal collections team, or it may be outsourced to an external collection agency, or indeed they might wash their hands of it altogether, and sell it on, either way, collectors are much more flexible than original creditors, so they will pretty much accept what your budget says you can afford, so I wouldn't worry at all on that score.

As far as the unaffordable lending complaint goes, Debt Camel covers your issue here -

How to ask your bank for a refund of overdraft charges · Debt Camel

I`d bang in another complaint to the bank, do it in writing this time, make it official, can`t hurt can it.

mlig

Thank you for your response, and I'm really sorry I've only just seen it!
They sold it on pretty quickly to a debt collectors, and I'm more than happy to pay what I owe, its the fact that most of it is charges and interest which I want removing as they shouldn't have ever lent it to me, and I shouldn't have taken it either, but I only did it to cover the fees from the overdraft that they gave me.. It was a bit of a vicious circle, like a roundabout that I just couldn't get off... My overdraft ended up being about 6 x more than the money I had coming in each month and I wasn't working

I will try another written complaint to the bank and see!

Newmum92

I don’t know if this helps but I’ve had recent experience of a complaint to my bank, asking for a refund of all charged and interest on the grounds of unfair charges. The basis of my complaint was the fact I’ve been living in my 5,000 overdraft for the past 5 years and that the £130 charges a month have contributed to my financial hardship.

I first complained to the bank, who declined my complaint within a few days. I then went straight to the financial ombudsman, to be honest I didn’t expect a positive result as really it was my own stupidity that landed me in the financial position I was in.

however I have had confirmation this week that the ombudsman agreed with me and the bank had accepted to settle the complaint as they suggested - £4600 refund has just been paid off my OD!! So it’s definitely worth a shot 

kaMelo

Newmum92 said:

I don’t know if this helps but I’ve had recent experience of a complaint to my bank, asking for a refund of all charged and interest on the grounds of unfair charges. The basis of my complaint was the fact I’ve been living in my 5,000 overdraft for the past 5 years and that the £130 charges a month have contributed to my financial hardship.

I first complained to the bank, who declined my complaint within a few days. I then went straight to the financial ombudsman, to be honest I didn’t expect a positive result as really it was my own stupidity that landed me in the financial position I was in.

however I have had confirmation this week that the ombudsman agreed with me and the bank had accepted to settle the complaint as they suggested - £4600 refund has just been paid off my OD!! So it’s definitely worth a shot 

What is the DRN number of your case?

Case specific details can make a big difference in being successful or not and knowing the reasons why the Ombudsman ruled as they did is helpful with future advice given.

Newmum92

kaMelo said:

Newmum92 said:

I don’t know if this helps but I’ve had recent experience of a complaint to my bank, asking for a refund of all charged and interest on the grounds of unfair charges. The basis of my complaint was the fact I’ve been living in my 5,000 overdraft for the past 5 years and that the £130 charges a month have contributed to my financial hardship.

I first complained to the bank, who declined my complaint within a few days. I then went straight to the financial ombudsman, to be honest I didn’t expect a positive result as really it was my own stupidity that landed me in the financial position I was in.

however I have had confirmation this week that the ombudsman agreed with me and the bank had accepted to settle the complaint as they suggested - £4600 refund has just been paid off my OD!! So it’s definitely worth a shot 

What is the DRN number of your case?

Case specific details can make a big difference in being successful or not and knowing the reasons why the Ombudsman ruled as they did is helpful with future advice given.

Hi,

ah not sure how do I find the DRN number? The decision was only made this week so maybe that’s why I don’t know it yet.