Thread: How to force Barclaycard to remove a default - advice please.

To cut a long story short:

1. I had a Barclaycard but stopped using it over 5 years ago. I thought I had cancelled it, but hadn't. I wasn't receiving statements because I had a zero balance.

2. I moved house in 2003. I didn't notify Barclaycard because I didn't realise my card was still active.

3. In 2008 I was contacted by Lowell Financial demanding payment of £2,500 of debt from my Barclaycard. I contacted Barclaycard to find out how this had arisen and they refused to speak to me, saying they had sold the debt.

4. I assued a statutory request to Barclaycard to get the statements relating to the debt. The statements reveal that someone used my card to make two separate cash withdrawals of £900 each on the same day in October 2005, from different branches of Barclays bank in south-east London.

5. I can only assume that someone intercepted a replacement card, or manufactured a card using my details somehow. There were no further transactions, presumably because the card was over its limit.

6. Barclaycard started sending statements to my old address. This was two years after I moved, so the mail redirection was no longer in force, and I had no idea this was going on. With interest and late payment charges, the debt grew from £1,800 to £2,500. After 12 months of statements and demands, which obviously were not responded to, Barclaycard gave up and defaulted my account. This default shows on my credit record, and caused me to be refused credit recently for the first time ever.

7. Firstly, I am amazed that Barclaycard allowed the fraudulent transactions in the first place. I had never used the card to withdraw cash, and hadn't used it at all for at least 2 years. Then suddenly they see two cash withdrawals for £900 each on the same day, in a location where I have never used my card. I thought they had sophisticated systems to detect potential fraud?

8. Secondly, they made no attempt to trace me to my new address. By contrast Lowell Financial, to whom Barclaycard sold the debt, managed to write to me at my new address almost immediately.

9. So, I wrote to Barclaycard thanking them for the statements, explaining the position, and asking how I should proceed to have the default removed from my credit history. This was over a month ago, and they have not replied.

Can I force Barclaycard to take any kind of action, or are they within their rights to ignore my request? Otherwise I will have a default hanging over me for another 4 years, and dread to think how this might affect me in the current climate, for example if I needed to remortgage. My credit record is otherwise without blemish, and now I am the victim of a crime, albeit one that occurred 3 years ago.

As far as I can see my only 'failing' was in not telling Barclaycard that I had moved, but as I had stopped using the card with a zero balance, and had my mail redirected for a year after moving, I don't see how they can hold this against me.

Any advice greatly appreciated.

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Thanks for the suggestions. I wrote a very conciliatory letter to Barclaycard setting out the position: I should not be flagged as a defaulter when I was the victim of a crime, and had no idea the debt existed. Yes, I didn't notify my change of address, but that is a different issue. I thought the card was cancelled, wasn't receiving statements due to the zero balance, so didn't notify them when I moved. If I had knowingly not paid a debt then fair enough, I am in default and have to deal with the consequences - but that wasn't the case.

Problem is, Barclaycard haven't even acknowledged receipt of the letter, which was sent nearly 4 weeks ago by recorded delivery. Can they just ignore it? How can I force them to respond, which would at least give me something to work with?

Thanks for any help regarding my legal right to a response.

Hi, just wondering if there's an update on this case. We're in the middle of an, erm, "discussion" with Barclaycard where similarly a zero balance in 2004 mysteriously becomes a statement out of the blue in 2008 with 300-some pounds on.

They ignored our letters for a year then ignored the complaint about ignoring us for six months until we enforced through the fos. The enforced reply comes in three parts which contradict one another and don't in any way explain how the balance comes to be there. So it's taken 18 months to get a non-reply, so far.

Maybe we should write and say we think it's fraud? Because if we can't explain it, and Barclaycard can't, what else can it be?

In this case we don't even have statements between zero pounds and >300 pounds...

Meanwhile Mercers... well, you all know about Mercers. I shall say no more.