Credit card debt being pursued by a bank who have not contacted me for 9 years.

Hello,
I'm hoping somebody can help shed some light on this one.

I have been contacted by one of the banks (who I will call Bank A) who have confirmed that I still owe them an amount of money - just over £2k. I was rather surprised to get their letter confirming this. This post is not about PPI but it was as a result of PPI applications with a debt management company who are representing another bank (BANK that I found out that my monthly payments for one of the accounts was not to pay for the debt with Bank A but somebody else. I am still investigating this confusion but the fact remains that Bank A are stating they have not had a payment from me since January 2008.

I wrote to Bank A and explained the above - it was me that initiated the dialogue with them they didn't contact me. I explained that I was looking into this further because none of it made sense. What made less sense, was the fact that Bank A have had my last 2 addresses and my current one but have not written to me to chase for payment. I asked them to look into this. What they are saying is that 3 separate debt management companies wrote to me chasing the debt over a period of 1 year. I didn't receive communication from either of them. If I had, I would not have ignored the letters. The 'debt' then passed back to them on the 9th January 2008 and they have not received a payment from me since then.

I have explained to them that I thought I was paying the debt each month via a debt management company. I asked them to explain to me why, if they have had my address for the last 9 years they have not written to me chasing payment. I would not have ignored them. They have confirmed in writing to me today that they did not update their system to reflect my new address and have apologised but state that I still owe them the money. They state the account is not statute barred because I requested account information within the 6 year limitation period. I'm not sure what information they are referring to, I will write to them for clarification on this. Possibly they are referring to a SAR request I asked for a few years ago in relation to PPI which I will pursue with them separately (although this is further proof that they have had my address details all along as they sent me the SAR info). In conversation with somebody else the other day (not a qualified financial expert), their view was that the debt no longer stands because of the timescales. That I have kept Bank A up to date with where I lived but they did not write to me pursuing the amount owed. I am not entirely sure about this point although its an interesting point nonetheless. Bank A have asked me now to contact them and make repayment arrangements with their internal debt recovery department.

My view presently is that I should refer this matter to the Financial Ombudsman. Is that a reasonable next step?

Thanks in advance for any comments.