Default Issued By Hfc (marbles) Help!!

t1mwatson

Earlier this year, I moved into a new property, on doing so I cleared the balances of a number of credit cards and closed the accounts.

One of these credit cards was the Marbles Credit Card. I called Marbles Card Customer Services, and asked the representative to tell me the balance outstanding on the account. She explained that the total amount outstanding was £7286.47. I then informed her that I intended to repay the full outstanding amount and close the account. I asked what I needed to do to do this.

The customer service representative explained that if I paid the outstanding, then she would close the account for me when the payment had cleared. She then proceeded to take the full payment of £7286.47 from my Switch card, confirmed that it had been authorised and told me that the balance was now zero. I asked her to confirm that I owed nothing else, and that the account would be closed. This again, she confirmed. I offered to register my new address details, but the customer service representative was unable to do this as she explained my account was now closed.

I then moved properties, safe in the knowledge that my cards had been paid off. This was, and should’ve been the last that Id heard from Marbles.

However in October, I received another call from Marbles. I took this call at my home. On the other end of the phone was another customer services representative, this time from the Birmingham Head Office. She was calling to request a payment towards an outstanding balance of £208.70.

As you can imagine I was totally flabbergasted. I was amazed to get a call from Marbles after the conversation I had with their customer service team earlier in the year. I was even more surprised to discover that I owed money!

I explained the situation to the lady on the phone, who duly expressed her concern and promised to look into this for me. She called me 20 minutes later to explain that there had been an error, and that the “Indian Call Centre” had taken my payment on the day of the statement date, therefore accruing additional interest for the following month. Clearly initially this wasn’t brought to my attention when I paid the balance, and any further attempts to contact me would’ve been sent to the old address.

She accepted the mistake and apologised for the error. She said that the amount would be refunded to bring the balance to zero. Unconvinced I asked her to change the address on the system anyway to my current address so that any future correspondence would be sent there.

So I received my statement, as agreed she had refunded the outstanding amount, ’14 November - £208.70 – Goodwill Gesture‘. The balance isn’t quite zero (there is £2.19 outstanding). This I can live with. What I cannot live with, is the ramifications of this error

Curious as to what implications the last 9 months has had on my credit score, I applied for my credit report. On obtaining the report, I work my through the various credit agreements and reach the one titled HFC Bank Credit Card Services. To my horror there is a big red 8 and a default been placed on my account.

In basic terms, this means that during the past 9 months HFC Bank have been placing defaults on my credit record – and even after I had spoken to the lady who accepted the error, there has been a default issued. (I viewed a credit report at the time of purchasing my house in February, and although there was some occasional ad-hoc late payments over the duration of the card history, there was absolutely nothing to suggest that that these were to be escalated to a default.)

Immediately I call Experian and explained the situation, they tell me I need to get in touch with the lender to discuss the situation.

So i wrote a letter to both HFC and Experian explaining the situation and today recieved one back saying that HFC have looked into it and the default is correct and they will not be removing it.


Sorry for the long post but is there something I can do to dispute this further or am I wasting my time?

Thanks,Tim,.

jonesMUFCforever

You can (and should) make Marbles correct the enties on your credit files.

You can also add your own comments.

Dylanwing

Look up their complaints procedure and do the Final Letter, threatening them with the FOS. Set out the details clearly and concisely, and request that your credit file is corrected. They have admitted liability, so I can't see them refusing, and if they do, refer it to the FOS.

t1mwatson

thanks for this chaps, really appreciate it - can i just ask, whats the FOS? and what do I need to threaten them with exactly (in laymans terms)

jonesMUFCforever

The Ombudsman.

missile

See here> http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/

and please use the thanks button for those posters you think have been helpul.