Confused about Bank of Scotland Recoveries Team and letters I have

Just another thing I wanted to ask. It says I'm £20.61 in arrears. I looked at February and January and the minimum payments are £15 and £17 and the minimum payments for all of last year were similar despite the interest being frozen and me agreeing to pay £60 per month.

I can't find anything online about this but if my balance is £1350. How would I know what my minimum payments would be? I found not only my original agreement which I signed from 2008 but also a statement from 2011 where the interest was 19.9% APR and the balance at that time is pretty much the same as it is now and it says on that statement that the minimum payment was £25.

Is it possible that in 2018, this £20.61 arrears is actually what the minimum payment would be if I were to continue paying the card with interest? Because my balance has been reduced so much since March 2017 where the minimum payment was going up to over £80 per month or is this just something different? Such as the agreement we made in March 2017 where it affected the minimum payments I would make?

If it is the first one. If my minimum payments going forward were to be around the £20 mark, would I be better off actually paying this, stopping the card from being defaulted and continuing the £60 monthly payments where I would be paying an additional £40 per month to bring the balance down? Or is it a case of if I pay this £20.61, come next month there's gonna be another £25 interest which means I've paid nothing and the following month they could give me another surprise and say you're minimum payments are going to be £80 again.

Does anyone have any insight on that? I also was thinking of calling again tomorrow and asking for not only the original agreement but every phone call I have made so far to be sent to me in writing because I have had a read over my original post here and at no point as you can see.....did I ever mention the words DEFAULT NOTICE. So is it possible that the original agreement was in fact like I had written on this forum where the interest would be frozen, I was then in a long term agreement to clear the balance, NO INTEREST WAS TO EVER BE ADDED AGAIN AND IF IT WAS I WAS TO CONTACT THEM IMMEDIATELY.......the account would then be passed to Recoveries and then Collections where the long term agreement would still be in place for me to pay £60 per month, no interest added and when the balance is clear it is clear or ....maybe my memory is wrong and they did mention a default notice. Or is it in fact the last person I spoke to on the phone, telling me not to pay anything for 65 days that has flagged me up on their computer systems and it is their COMPUTER SYSTEMS that is ready to hit me with this default notice and a default notice may not have been a part of any agreement I made because I remember a lot from that phone call and how happy and relieved I was.....I think if the words Default Notice had been mentioned to me I would have mentioned it on here. As you can see I was worried later on down the line and again.....at no point did I mention anything about a Default Notice.

If I could get advice on what to do that would be great. The letter says it has to be paid prior to the 24th June so today is now or never. Do I make another phone call? Do I make the payment and then make the phone call and tell them the original agreement says no interest to be added at all and I want it all in writing. And here's where I want you all to really help me, because as you can see I get carried away with typing, I type a lot, I tell you what's going on in my head as I type it.


Is it possible that over a year ago when I had that long phone call and we talked about income and what I could afford and they spoke those important words to me......long term agreement. Is it possible that the person on the phone did in fact say I would get a default notice? Could they have said to me, pay £60 a month, we'll freeze the interest, keep paying that until the balance is cleared but you will be given a default notice a year down the line? Is there a chance that could have been said to me? A long term agreement, no more interest, you agree to pay £60 on the 21st of every month and you keep doing that until the balance clears. It get's passed to collections and recoveries and a year down the line we will issue you with a default notice? Is it possible I've made a mistake? I honestly think if that was the case I would have mentioned it in here. I made this thread in July last year just 4 months after all this happened, it would have been fresh in my memory. I panicked about the collections and recoveries letters, surely I would have mentioned a default notice as well.


I just don't know what to think. I also noticed last month the minimum payment was meant to be £47 so that's double than the month before. If £20.61 is the minimum payment on a balance of £1350 then I would be happy to keep paying £60 a month just to avoid the default notice, I don't even really know what a default notice is, I'm trying to read as much as I can about it. But I just keep going back to that original phone call and the person I spoke to last night kept saying the same thing. He said several times you have an agreement, a long term plan. Is this default notice something someone has deliberately sent me or is it just something their systems has done on it's own regardless of any payment plan you may have in place. It says I'm getting it because I never paid £20.61. The reason I paid nothing was because I got interest charged on the account and the person I spoke to last year said if you ever see interest getting added, call us right away to get it removed which I did and then that person said to me because you've been paying £60 the system sees you were making the minimum payments and kept the account open so don't pay anything for 65 days but the funny thing is is that in March 2017 when this long term agreement was in place, the account was closed anyway, I can't use the card, I haven't used the card in years. What do you think I should do?

I'll redo it into small parts.

In March 2017 I called the Bank of Scotland because I had trouble paying the minimum payment on the credit card I owed, which had not been used for many years. The balance at that time was I think, around £2500. I was paying £60 per month which was a little bit over the minimum, it was always usually between £56 and £60 so sometimes the minimum, other times a few ££s more. I noticed on my online banking that this was now £87 per month so that wasn't going to work. I've been a full time carer for my Dad for 5 years, I can't work a full time job , I don't have the kind of money coming in to really clear the card.

On that phone call we went through my expenses, the woman on the phone said that interest would be frozen on the card and I would no longer be able to use the card. The account was to be passed to collections and recoveries and I would receive letters about this. I was entered into a long term agreement with them where I would pay what I could every month until the balance was cleared. I said on the phone I would be happy to continue paying £60 on the 21st of every month, we agreed on the phone that is what I would do. If i noticed any interest being accrued on the card I was to phone immediately to get it removed.

About 3 months after this phone I got those letters about Recoveries and Collections and as you can see from a previous post, I panicked about them in case a debt collection agency would come to my door, I was reassured by a forum member that wasn't the case. The reason I panicked was because no mention of this was made on the phone call I had, I just thought the account would stay with Collections or Recoveries and that would be it. I would just keep paying till the balance cleared.

Every 3 months since then I would get these letters and every 3 months I would make a phone call and be told the same thing. You're in a long term agreement, interest is frozen, keep paying and clear the balance.

In April this year I noticed interest being added on the card, £25 interest. I had a closer look at my statements and noticed this happened for a few months prior but I didn't pay anything. I made another phone call and on the phone I was told the reason this interest was being added is because I was able to make the minimum payments and their systems reinstated the interest. I again asked about my long term agreement with them. They apologized and said the interest would be removed from the account and the refund would be added to the balance so I had over £50 taken off the balance again and I was told not to pay anything for 65 days because If I did, basically their systems would assume the account is fine and it would keep it open. It was closed anyway, I can't use it.


So I got a letter on the 26th May saying the account will be passed to the recoveries team. They will temporary freeze interest and further charges on my outstanding balance. Before we transfer your account to our Recoveries Team we will send you a Default Notice and then a Formal Demand, if you have not already received these letters. The transfer will be completed around two months from the date of this letter provided your account is still in arrears. This gives us enough time to send letters which we have to send you such as a Formal Demand. It also allows time should your financial circumstances improve.


The question I'm asking is why has this taken over a year to happen. The default notice says I owe £20.61. The reason I owe this is because I was told not to pay anything for 65 days, the 65 days is AFTER tomorrow, which is when this needs to be paid. Do i pay this and avoid the Default Notice and ask them why this has happened over a year later or do I do nothing and see what happens? For a year now I have been happily paying £60 a month to clear the balance, the balance is around £1300 now. And when I called yesterday the person kept telling me I was in a long term agreement and that hasn't changed so I don't know what to think. On one hand I don't know if the Default Notice was always intended to be sent or is the only reason I'm getting it because the account is £20.61 in arrears? And the only it's in arrears is because the last person I spoke to told me don't pay anything for 65 days otherwise I would have paid another £120 by now.


And I'm sorry to keep writing but if £20.61 is infact a MINIMUM PAYMENT, is it worth my while to keep the account going and keep paying £60 per month meaning I'm paying £40 extra to the account in order to avoid the Default Notice or should I remind them of the long term agreement, made over a year ago, which I was reminded of again last night that I would never pay interest on this account again and my long term agreement says I would keep paying money to clear the balance?

Sorry for all that lol. Thanks.