You won't have to repay your credit card balance?

Randyyy07

Hello everyone.

With my work, personal health and then a family member seriously ill my finances took a hit. I went from living on credit cards to finally being unable to pay them.

I wrote to explain my situation and complain about the constant rises in credit limits which shouldn't have been applied.

After basically being fobbed off by some credit card suppliers I finally received some unbelievable news.



 I do not have to repay my balance! I have also received a second letter from Halifax also saying I do not have to pay again. That's two balances I believe are being wrote off.

Has anyone else ever experienced this or had similar letters? I never expected to have my balance completely wrote off just reduced or payment plan set up!? I have two cards with MBNA so I'm confused why they have wrote one off but I haven't heard anything yet from the second balance. It has all disappeared from my app tho which gives me slight hope.

Thanks for reading and hope anyone can share their own experience.

sourcrates

Does happen, and more often than you would think.

They took a commercial decision that it suited all parties best to simply write off the balances.

Well done.

david29dpo

Someone will end up paying, usually other customers. 

ManyWays

This doesnt sound like "shutting down and old system", as I doubt MBNA will be on the same system as Halifax, even though they are both part of the Lloyds Banking Group. It sounds more like an unusual decision to shortcut through some affordability complaints. Perhaps they hope you will give up on the other MBNA card, did it have a larger or a smaller balance than the one being written off?  

It isnt the response to your affordability complaint (no complaint reference, no mention of the ombudsman) so you should still get that response and can send the other card to the ombudsman if not upheld.

We will be on the look out for any more of these!

jifmoose

Congratulations OP!

To anyone imagining that redressing MBNA's clearly unaffordable lending somehow disadvantages other customers, perhaps they should reflect that according to companies house MBNA Ltd made £262M in pre-tax profits in 2024. By this logic there should follow an enormous celebration of largess accruing to all of their customers.

Didn't happen?

So of course nothing in this resembles a zero-sum game between customers in which MBNA is somehow a pristinely disinterested party. Robust regulation means the risk of bad commercial decisions falls on the private enterprises that make them: they don't get to socialise the risk while reaping the profits. This benefits all MBNA customers (and UK financial services consumers more generally) at piffling cost to LBG's bottom line. As the OP's experience shows, it's not unusual that they are willing to write off entirely as the cost of doing business.

Randyyy07

Thanks for the messages. 

I believe they replied to the complaint with the standard reply of I accepted the increases and didn't get in touch sooner. I'll have to try and find their reply to confirm.

They have wrote off the smaller of the two balances but I have nothing on my app anymore of either balance. I'm not sure where to pay now if I get myself in the position to begin reducing the payments. Hopefully I'll receive some more contact from them shortly about the second balance. I am abit confused with alot of my debt as looking at my credit report albeit reluctantly. Some of my debt has disappeared while others that are being wrote off are there. Very strange.

I also disagree with the poster above about them claiming in back from other consumers. I doubt they are going to add £££ to someone's statement because I have had mine wrote off. It's silly. Hopefully it means MBNA have realised they should have helped me out sooner instead of sending standard template letters about my persistent debt!

fatbelly

It's something that is happening through the whole Lloyds Banking Group. I had an email about it today