Bank complaint

mlig

Hi,
This is my first post on here, but I wondered if anybody could help.. Not sure if this is the right forum, but hopefully

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..

dunstonh

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. 

With overdrafts there is no credit check done on you.

but I do begrudge the hideous charge that are on the overdraft and the fact that they wouldn't help me. 

Although you went and took credit out elsewhere as well.  So, if they had not have given you the overdraft you probably would have borrowed from elsewhere.

Can I complain again to the bank, about the same thing, or can I not because they took that as a complaint before? 

No.   If the bank doesn't voluntarily reopen the complaint then that route is no longer available to you.