Default date dispute

2babyboys

hello all,

I fell into mental health issues and financial difficulty in 2017 into 2018, following a serious health diagnosis and subsequent bereavement.  Advice from Stepchange was to enter a DMP so I did this early-mid 2018.  This resulted in all of my debts defaulting during 2018, which means that they are dropping off this year.  I have one though (Lloyds credit card) that did not default me until Nov 2019 which is a year later than ALL others.  Obviously this is concerning because in this time since these problems I have completely reformed my finances, I earn 40% more and save regularly without anymore bad markers since my hardship.  I wrote to Lloyds asking them to reconsider the default date as I fell into arrears from May 2018.  Their response states that they accepted the Stepchange proposal and made a decision to close my account in Sept 2019 as Stepchange lowered my offer by £2 which made them decide that it was unlikely my situation would improve and was below the minimum payment, at which point they sold the debt to PRA Group and defaulted me.  They deny my request to bring the default in to 2018 despite the 6 months arrears starting May-Oct 2018.
I did quote the ICO guidance.  Has anyone got any advice what i can do next please?  I really want my file clean this year so I can help my son buy a property and to buy a HP car.  I have a great monthly disposable income now and my current situation is not a true reflection of my financial status.
Thank you for reading

fatbelly

You can escalate the complaint to ICO now that they have given you a final response

https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/data-protection-complaints/data-protection-complaints/

sourcrates

Agree with the above, escalate the matter and see how the ICO view this.

2babyboys

Thanks for the responses...I actually called LLoyds and spoke to the complaint handler, explaining why i fell into difficulty in the first place which was all documented by my GP as a nervous breakdown.  She was very understanding and said she'd reopen the complaint and reconsider, so for now I wait again.  Will update again for others in similar situation.  Thank you again

2babyboys

Lloyds got back to me today and after consideration of the situation at the time which they weren't aware of, they have decided to re date the default to June 2018, so I'm hoping that it will disappear soon.  Thanks all