Santander - missing payment instead of default

Lemon_Lime

Hi All, 
I started my DMP in 2017 with a total of £26.5k, and am now 18 months from finishing paying this off.

Back in 2017/2018 all bar 1 of the lenders defaulted my accounts, so this year and next will see them drop off my credit record. The exception to this was Santander Credit Card who instead has posted a missing payment for every month until the point my DMP payment to them was above the minimum payment (reached this point in March 2020.) This means that the missing payments will show until 2026.

I’m not sure why Santander didn’t default my account, but with the way they have reported it to the credit agencies seems to be worse than if they did. Do you think I have any grounds to complain? 

I will pay back 100% but feel like being held against me for 9 years is a bit too much. 

Appreciate anyones thoughts.
Thanks

sourcrates

Yes indeed, and you should complain.

You have made the effort to repay your debts via your DMP.
Yet someone who has ignored their debt completely, would be better off, credit file wise, than you are, as they would have been defaulted, and there file would have healed a lot quicker than yours will.

Because of this, they have treated you unfairly, and gone against FCA guidelines.

You should ask for the account to be defaulted, and backdated to the start of your DMP.

Escalate to the FOS if they won`t do so.

Lemon_Lime

sourcrates said:

Yes indeed, and you should complain.

You have made the effort to repay your debts via your DMP.
Yet someone who has ignored their debt completely, would be better off, credit file wise, than you are, as they would have been defaulted, and there file would have healed a lot quicker than yours will.

Because of this, they have treated you unfairly, and gone against FCA guidelines.

You should ask for the account to be defaulted, and backdated to the start of your DMP.

Escalate to the FOS if they won`t do so.

Thank you, I have raised a complaint with Santander.

Lemon_Lime

So I raised the complaint with Santander and they disagreed with me about amending to a default and advised if I wanted to take it further to complain via FOS.

So I did complain to FOS and and investigator has just replied to say they also disagreed with me and that Santander treated me fair and reasonably, as they accepted the offer from Stepchange

I can ask for my complaint to reviewed and if I want to need to provided additional information. Really disappointed with FOS.

Rob5342

It was the same for me with MBNA. I escalated it to an ombudsman but they made a final decision against me even.

Lenders do it so they can start charging you interest again, if they defaulted they wouldn't be able to. It's very unfair that they can get away with treating people making an effort to clear their debts so badly.

sourcrates

Have you quoted to them what I put in my last post ?

"You have made the effort to repay your debts via your DMP.
Yet someone who has ignored their debt completely, would be better off, credit file wise, than you are, as they would have been defaulted, and there file would have healed a lot quicker than yours will".

I would ask for a re-view, with that argument as the starting point.