Thread: I really am desperate...please can you help me resolve this Barclays nightmare?

Hello,

I really am totally depressed and sick to death of dealing with this complaint, which has now been running for years, not months. I just don't seem to be getting anywhere, so please can someone help point out my options?

I've posted about this elsewhere and before, so I'm going to set out the facts again clearly so you can see what has happened.

In April 2005 I took out a Barclays Graduate Loan for £10,000, repayable over 5 years. The interest rate on this was 7.9%.

Unbeknown to me, Barclays added PPI to this (around £1,700) and so the starting balance was £11,700, all attracting a nice healthy amount of interest for them.

It wasn't until January 2006 that I got my loan documents through, at which point I noticed that PPI had been added.

I went into my branch and challenged them on this: I said I didn't need it, didn't ask for it and accused them of mis-selling it (which I believe is true: I was unemployed at the time of taking it out, I didn't consent to it, it was single-premium and I already had existing cover through my job offer).

To their credit, they said they would remove the PPI.

However, this is where things went disastrously wrong:

The branch I visited had never dealt with a graduate loan before, as they are based very much in the city and were more used to commercial enquiries.

What they did was as follows:

The closed the old loan (with PPI) down
The made me open a new loan (without PPI) to replace the old one - but this was for a balance of £10,000.
They refunded me £1,200ish to my current account

This 'restructuring' process took 2 months from start to finish, so I received a further 'goodwill gesture' of £300 refunded - this related to the PPI I had paid whilst the restructure was taking place.

This was concluded in March 2006.

So, to recap, from April 2005 to March 2006 I had made 7 payments of £242 towards my loan, which totals £1,694. I had only received a refund, however, of £1,502.

Now here's the key issue that I have spent many months battling with Barclays about:

I have spent a huge amount of time investigating the way in which Barclays restructured my loan to remove PPI, and I have identified some really serious problems:

Firstly, the refund I received was less than the amount I'd paid
Secondly, I don't think they should have made me take out a 'new' loan
Third, the length of the new loan was longer (7 years) than the old one (5)

And fourth: this is the big bit:

When Barclays refunded me £1,502, I believe (and have spoken to Barclays staff to confirm this) that what they should have done is applied this refund to the loan balance, rather than refunded it to my current account.

This is really very important, because of the way compound interest is calculated on my loan. Because Barclays refunded PPI to my current account – rather than refunding payments to the loan balance – the capital sum of my loan was not reduced. As a result, the interest it incurred and will incur on the lifetime of the loan means that actually I will end up paying more in interest than I will have received through any refund, so actually, Barclays are making more money out of me than they ordinarily would have, just because of the way they have restructured the loan.

Or, in other words, Barclays should have retrospectively applied my 7 payments of £242 to a starting balance of £10k in 2005, which would have given me a balance of £8,273 in 2006 (when the loan was restructured) and would have then given me a balance of £3,457 today.

Instead, my balance today is £5,782 because of the high compound interest created by retaining the high capital figure at the beginning of the loan term, so although I have been refunded £1,502, my loan is actually £2,324 higher than it ‘should’ be. Or, put simply: Barclays have refunded me £1,502 on the one hand, but the way they’ve restructured the loan has then cost me an additional £2,324, so I’m materially down by £1,014 at this point today. By the end of the loan, the amount I’m down will be even greater – and will exceed the £1,502 that Barclays ‘refunded’ to me, so actually Barclays are profiting from the restructure and I am down to the tune of about £2k.

Like I said, I have spent many months dealing with Barclays on this and they keep avoiding the question or not replying to my complaint. No-one seems to understand what I'm getting at, although they do seem to understand that the way they 'refunded' PPI to me was incorrect.

I am tempted to now instruct a solicitor to take legal action on my behalf for this, but I'm loathe to give them money which I believe is rightfully mine. I'd be happy if they could claim additional costs against Barclays, but that's not how it works.

Please could someone help me? I am so depressed with this whole sorry affair and feel like giving up. It's totally drained me emotionally and I can't stand it anymore. It's making my life hell and I just wish Barclays would employ someone with an ounce of IQ who could understand the complexities of my case and actually put me in the position I should now be in legally.

I'm very tempted - quite genuinely - to take some kind of drastic action to get a response from Barclays, whether that's supergluing myself to the doors of their office or protesting...I really want an answer.

Please help!

Hi, first thing you need to do if you haven't already, send a Subject access request for all the information they hold on you. Send it recorded and signed for,enclose £10 postal order. They have 40 days to send you all the infomation they hold on you. do not sign YOUR NAME AS YOU WOULD NORMALY

Secondly, send £1.00 - P O recorded and signed for requesting a copy of the signed credit agreement. (CCA) Consumer credit agreement. plus the terms and condition pertaining to the said loan at the time it was taken out. DO NOT SIGN YOUR NAME
They have 12 day plus 2 to forward a copy to you.

You,ll find these letters in the template letters.

Thirdly I know you are sick to death with it and really want some closher on the problem.

But its not that easy to plough your way throught the legalities of the promblem, but you are on the right site here for loads of very good advice.

Finnally, I have been fighting a Student Loan for my Son with HSBC for over 3 yrs. I don,t here anything from their Solicitors now, they have passed it to their in house collection service, I here nothing from them for 9 months then I might get a D C A letter, so I just give the same answers and they disappear for anoth yr. They have told us they cannot produce a CCA so as far as Im concerned thats the end of the matter.

I realise that your problem is tottally different from my Son, but the above information will set you of on the right track, then when you receive you CCA re[ply we can all have a look at it for you.

Please do not spend money just yet on a Solicitor, untill you have a bit more information, Don,t give up, and don,t get depressed with it, with all the help on here from these good folks we can work through it with you.

Regard and keep smiling Lynn

Hi Bach and thanks for you advice.

I've already gone through most of these steps, but actually I do not really need a copy of the credit agreement for this one as I'm not challenging the agreement per se, but the way they put it together and offered it to me in the first instance.

It's really frustrating: everyone I speak to all agrees that Barclays haven't done things in the right way, apart from the woman who is handling my complaint. She won't actually pick up the phone and call me to ask me to explain the letter; instead, she just skim reads whatever I've said and then replies to a few bits that she misinterprets.

What's wrong with calling and speaking to customers? I've asked her to do this about 20 times now.

I've got no idea where this complaint is heading as it's dragged on for a long long time (since 2006) and I just want closure on it. More importantly, I want the £2.5k back that I shouldn't have paid!