Thread: Thank but no thanks letter

Hey, Wondering if people can hand out some advice.

I've had the severe misfortune to have been a Lloyds TSB customer since the late 1990s. Everything was fine until 2003 when my parter left me and I was left, as a uni student, propping up rapidly crumbling finances as he left me with the house and it's periferals to pay for, apparently as I was first to sign on everything the blame lies sqaurely at my door. I stopped banking with lloyds in 2003 as they refused to turn my classic account into a student one, I've been with Natwest ever since. From memory my lloyds debt was about £1000.

Since 2003 I've paid in money when able (having held down 3 jobs while studying trying to keep up with lloyds demands) while they have continued to give me false information, extend my overdraft limits and charge me to the hilt (£200 in one day) which has resulted in me going over my overdraft limit, being charged for that, rinse and repeat.

Since 2003 I've been in severe financial hardship, a) as a student and b) as an unemployed graduate since 2008. I've paid money in where possible, I've been sent to the collections department I've had andover lose not one set of compliant/please refund paperwork but two. I've discovered that the collections centre in India (no I'm sure your name isn't Richard, any more than mine is Rashid) and Lloyds TSB branches don't operate on the same computer system. At it's height Lloyds TSB and Lloyds TSB credit card had put me into debt to the tune of £6000 (that includes my £1000 orignal debt) That's £5000 in charges.

My joint account with my ex was supposed to have been frozen as he declined to return any of the paperwork to close the account (that is if Lloyds actually sent him any). I asked my local branch at the time if they could remove the £5 charge account and put it to a base account, they told me no. £500 of charges later someone on the phone in a UK based call centre told me that stopping the charge wouldn't be an issue and she didn't understant why this couldn't have been halted in the first place.

My current account I've had RPs only to be recently told as my account is in dispute that I can't have another one.

I was even passed to a solicitor who were so wonderful and could see that my accounts had been so grossly mismanaged they wiped off £600 of debt for me to put me back into branch control. Having had my mental health suffer as a result of all the stress they've put me under, and working non stop while I should have been studying I now owe about £3400.

I've pleaded my case under severe fincancial hardship. I've had the CSSC is it also confirm that my hardship is severe.

I've bent over backwards for lloyds, now only to be told "oh we've won ha ha ha, now pay us"

I don't disagree with charges if I'd put myself £6k in debt then I'd have issues, but I disagree with the fact Lloyds put me £5k into debt and expect me to deal with the consequences.

Is there anything I can do apart from killing myself in their headoffice to highlight the fact I seriously can't take any more?

First, have you got it all together including any evidence of admission of mismanaging your account and refusal by Lloyds to treat your case as one of financial hardsip?

It may help to raise a complaint on this with the fos. I'm about to do this with another bank.

Failing that - have you at least considered Bankruptcy?

It's not an easy decision, and you need to look at all the pros and cons for the next year or so, but it may be the way to go.

There are some good threads on on the forums which have given me a lot to think about which is quite positive.

Give it some thought because if nothing else, it is another option open to you. It might not be the best for a while, but the time will soon go and you can move on with a clean slate.

Good luck and chin up.

FSA do not deal with financial hardship claims, the fos do.

What are you saying Martin???

Originally Posted by MARTIN3030

If you read my post I did not refer specifically to a hardship claim-the reference was in consideration of making a complaint about the way in which they have been treated/dealt with.
The FSA do deal with complaints that focus on a wide range of areas within financial irregularities/unfair treatment.
They even have their own compensation scheme for complaints they uphold.

They will deal with complaints and log them so that if the issue is widespread that they can take regulatory action. They do not specifically deal with individual cases.

Originally Posted by weebles75

Hey, Wondering if people can hand out some advice.

I've had the severe misfortune to have been a Lloyds TSB customer since the late 1990s. Everything was fine until 2003 when my parter left me and I was left, as a uni student, propping up rapidly crumbling finances as he left me with the house and it's periferals to pay for, apparently as I was first to sign on everything the blame lies sqaurely at my door. I stopped banking with lloyds in 2003 as they refused to turn my classic account into a student one, I've been with Natwest ever since. From memory my lloyds debt was about £1000.

Since 2003 I've paid in money when able (having held down 3 jobs while studying trying to keep up with lloyds demands) while they have continued to give me false information, extend my overdraft limits and charge me to the hilt (£200 in one day) which has resulted in me going over my overdraft limit, being charged for that, rinse and repeat.

Since 2003 I've been in severe financial hardship, a) as a student and b) as an unemployed graduate since 2008. I've paid money in where possible, I've been sent to the collections department I've had andover lose not one set of compliant/please refund paperwork but two. I've discovered that the collections centre in India (no I'm sure your name isn't Richard, any more than mine is Rashid) and Lloyds TSB branches don't operate on the same computer system. At it's height Lloyds TSB and Lloyds TSB credit card had put me into debt to the tune of £6000 (that includes my £1000 orignal debt) That's £5000 in charges.

My joint account with my ex was supposed to have been frozen as he declined to return any of the paperwork to close the account (that is if Lloyds actually sent him any).
At the date that this happened, do you recall what the account balance was? Why did they refuse to stop the account since clearly there was a dispute?

I asked my local branch at the time if they could remove the £5 charge account and put it to a base account, they told me no. £500 of charges later someone on the phone in a UK based call centre told me that stopping the charge wouldn't be an issue and she didn't understant why this couldn't have been halted in the first place.
They should still have been able to put a stop on the account at the first point of contact.

My current account I've had RPs only to be recently told as my account is in dispute that I can't have another one.

I was even passed to a solicitor who were so wonderful and could see that my accounts had been so grossly mismanaged they wiped off £600 of debt for me to put me back into branch control. Having had my mental health suffer as a result of all the stress they've put me under, and working non stop while I should have been studying I now owe about £3400.
Is that to lloydstsb and is that the joint account?

I've pleaded my case under severe fincancial hardship. I've had the CSSC is it also confirm that my hardship is severe.

I've bent over backwards for lloyds, now only to be told "oh we've won ha ha ha, now pay us"
That letter is being sent out to all customers of all banks but it should NOT stop them assessing your claim for financial hardship albeit, LloydsTSB are notoriously bad unfortunately.
I don't disagree with charges if I'd put myself £6k in debt then I'd have issues, but I disagree with the fact Lloyds put me £5k into debt and expect me to deal with the consequences.

Is there anything I can do apart from killing myself in their headoffice to highlight the fact I seriously can't take any more?

On the credit card side of things, are there charges from 2003 cos that may well reduce the overall debt.

I am confused on the joint account issue and whether this account is still open or suspended.
There may be further room for manoevre on the joint account imho.

Originally Posted by yourbank

On the credit card side of things, are there charges from 2003 cos that may well reduce the overall debt.

I am confused on the joint account issue and whether this account is still open or suspended.
There may be further room for manoevre on the joint account imho.

Until last month I had 3 bank accounts with Lloyds TSB. I opened a sole account with them, which now has an od of £2900. I've got a cpy of the charges they've levied but I've not done a SAR, I'll look into that, would that cover my credit card too?

My joint account has not been in use by me or the ex since April 2003. however lloyds have syphoned off money from somewhere and put it in there to pay missed credit card payments, that they still charged me £12 late fees for. They have refused to refund the account charges with one of those standard ha ha we won letters, I'm not letting them get away with this. There was the loan coming out of the joint account, i asked them to let me take sole responsibility fo it but they'd not do anything without the ex's signature.

I had a third bank account whcih had a nominal od of £200, which was written off by solicitors acting on behalf of lloyds tsb last month/november.

We had a joint loan which I got a Full and final for, I was in the fortunate position that my parents could lend me the money to pay that off, about £1500 in the end.

I've done everything lloyds have asked me to, and they think they can get away with putting someone £5k in debt. It's not happening. I want to nail their testicles to the wall!

Originally Posted by weebles75

Until last month I had 3 bank accounts with Lloyds TSB. I opened a sole account with them, which now has an od of £2900. I've got a cpy of the charges they've levied but I've not done a SAR, I'll look into that, would that cover my credit card too?
No you would need the statements on the credit card.
My joint account has not been in use by me or the ex since April 2003. however lloyds have syphoned off money from somewhere and put it in there to pay missed credit card payments, that they still charged me £12 late fees for.
Was this before you opened another account with them? And was the credit card in joint names or rather principal card holder and secondary card holder?
They have refused to refund the account charges with one of those standard ha ha we won letters, I'm not letting them get away with this. There was the loan coming out of the joint account, i asked them to let me take sole responsibility fo it but they'd not do anything without the ex's signature.
Which again is in dispute, but it does beggar belief that they were denying you taking responsibility for the loan which I think is unreasonable of them. Did the joint account have an overdraft at the time it should have been stopped and no Direct Debits should have been allowed to go out if the account was stopped.
I had a third bank account whcih had a nominal od of £200, which was written off by solicitors acting on behalf of lloyds tsb last month/november.

We had a joint loan which I got a full and final for, I was in the fortunate position that my parents could lend me the money to pay that off, about £1500 in the end.

I've done everything lloyds have asked me to, and they think they can get away with putting someone £5k in debt. It's not happening. I want to nail their testicles to the wall!

I think you still have a case for either Bank Error in not stopping the original account and allowing the charges to build up even though they were aware of the dispute. It SHOULD have stopped further charges not already due to go out at the point you stepped through the branch and made them aware of the dispute.

I don't get why they did not accept you being able to pay it when you offered since realistically you were not saying you weren't going to pay it but that you were going to do so.

On the FH stuff, I can see it will be difficult to argue with Lloyds but am very intrigued by how little they did. Perhaps maladministration. I might ask Kraken who is pretty good on fos complaints to take a look at the thread with regards to maladministration.

Sorry i've not made things very clear as I'm so vexxed!

I've got a sole Lloyds bank account (opened around 1999) and a sole credit card (opened 2000)

The ex and I had a joint lloyds tsb bank account (opened around 2002), and we had the loan paid into and out of said account.

After we split up the financial advisor in aber let me open a sole bank account (opened in 2003) for the purpose of me paying in money for the bills etc to come out of.

None of it worked, I was left carrying all the debt, plus the debt lloyds put me into by increasing my overdraft limits.

Lloyds have been using the joint account for the last 12 months or so to squirrel away money I've been paying in, to pay off against my sole credit card. I wasn't aware they could do such things tbh, but they said they could. At one point there was a credit blanace of almost £200. I'd have liked to have offset it against other debts but lloyds said I couldn't.

Hope that clears things up a bit

It sounds like you might have grounds for a complaint, but there isn't enough info as yet. I think you need to SAR them and then draw out a very clear timeline as to when who did what. This will be key if you are going to show that they have acted unreasonably.

Secondly, open another account with someone else, you need an account that is not linked to Lloyds so you can take control of your finances again. It also means that they cannot try and set one account off another.

It may also pay to look into Debt relief orders to see if you qualify. Had the ex any assets you could sue him for? Make him take responsibility for his half?