Hi there

I have an account with Marbles / Newday.

the credit limit is £600.

I'm self employed and had a period of ill health, in hospital over that time things ran away from me a bit.

I got out last week and started to tackle the huge pile of letters, charges etc. over the period Oct to January

I missed on average 3 payments with several providers.

Over the last week I have made payments to all of them to cover all charges and get me a good chunk under the credit limit on those that it had pushed me over.

With marbles the latest statement 14th Feb showed:

Credit Limit £600

Overlimit due immediately: £141

Last statement balance: £729

Default Charges: £12

A notice of Sums in arrears, Missed payments jan and feb & a notice of default sums for feb £12 and a FCA debt advise letter.

I logged into my account to make a payment where it showed the same information, as my account was still live, I paid £450 via bank transfer on the 20th of Feb which cleared the same day.

Carefully budgeted as I had a lot of charges / debt that has built up over the last 3 months and emptied my bank paying those. That £150 would be lost to those charges, £100 I would leave on the card towards paying it off and that would leave me £200 to spend on this months bills.

Account said £300 odd available to spend online.

I tried to pay a bill the next day and my card was refused.

I rang them up they transferred me to collections who said they could see i was in credit and they'd lift the bar, card could be used next day (today)

Tried to pay the same bill again, card refused.

Called them and they said they had defaulted my account on the 1st of this month.

I asked why I had received no default notice (of account closure) and my account seemed to still be live and that I'd had a statement just a few days before (with default charges).

They said notice of account going into default was in with my statements.

Stupidly I binned all previous statements after reading them as I have such a huge pile of mail from last 3 months, felt it would be ok to work from latest statement. But there was absolutely no default notice in them.

From the conversation on the phone I gather that some kind of mistake was made and that I shouldn't have been receiving statements with new default sums in and they would knock that charge off, but that as far as they were concerned my account was closed and had been passed to Fredrickson international and was nothing to do with them anymore.

Despite that I can still log in, see an available to spend amount - get statements etc.

I'm not very hopeful of positive outcome, I'm not that upset at losing the card.

but do I have a leg to stand on in having the default removed?

Also where I've had no income for 3 months being self employed, what I paid them was very carefully budgeted and not having access to the extra amount I was expecting leaves me the creek this month.

I've already done enough work that I will be able to pay off the debt and forget about marbles / newday next month, but I don't receive payment for that in the interim and I paid that amount to marbles in the good faith that my credit limit was the same and my account still active as per the statement they sent me on the 14th of this month.

Is there any legal basis for access to those funds?

I'm assuming not on both, I'm guessing the fact i owe them money wipes it out even if there has been a mistake and it is there word against mine in the case of default letters having been sent.

But it cant hurt to ask

so its because they've lowered the credit limit that you cant now access the money?

No they said they closed the account completely on 1st of feb / that they had defaulted me and passed onto debt collectors. I've had no default notices (other than default payment notices at £12) in the statements like they have said were supposedly there.

My account shows online as live, and the statement they sent me on the 14th of this month shows everything is running as normal with a default payment fee of £12 for missed payment on 14th Feb, when I called them yesterday as far as they were concerned my account was live and they said they would take the block off.

Today that changed to the account was closed on the 1st (with default placed) and is no longer anything to do with them. contact debt collectors.

well its everything to do with them

they've not sold the debt..yet.

but ofcourse the account wasn't in actual credit

it was the credit limit that was giving you the 'credit'

so by closing it theres no longer that credit there = no credit to use

sadly they are entitled to close your account at anytime a recall the debt.

all the fees [£12] you can get back by reclaiming

Thanks, is there any recourse to getting the default removed.

They say that there was notice in the statements, but there isn't.

Is it just a case of if they say it was in there, that's enough?

As I had actually defaulted on 3 payments they were in a position to do so.

Would paying off the remaining debt in full next month hold any sway for them removing the default?

but you binned the statements and what came with them, so there might have been one.?

but yes they are entitled to default you.

they might if you pay it off as a GOGW

Yeah I did read them before binning them definitely nothing but regular statements (sadly Thursday is bin day or i'd go digging), but figured there wasn't much hope, Thanks for your help.

the golden rule is you scan or photo everything before you bin it!