Update / Plea for help! So after getting very annoyed at the ignorance of Santander I called them 3 times chasing my complaint and eventually was told to email the letter that they had signed for and lost – this email was followed immediately by a call from them to say sorry they’d now found my lost letter and the cheque that was with it and that the complaint would be escalated. This was 2 weeks ago and on Friday I got a letter dated 28th June that said: Thank you for your letter enclosing a cheque for £250, of which we received on the 7th of May 2013 [they signed for it on the 4th]. Firstly, I would like to apologise for the delay in my reply. Unfortunately, your letter had been passed to incorrect departments and sadly we did not receive your letter until 19th June. As you have not received the level of service that we mutually expect due to this delay in my reply, I enclose a cheque for £60 as gesture of goodwill. Please be assured feedback has been provided to the relevant areas. I am sorry to hear that you are unhappy with the decision that was reached by my colleague Craig Burnham as we have not agreed to refund the charges on your account ending [account number 1] and update your credit file. Having had an opportunity to review the details of your complaint I can confirm that our original decision remains unchanged and I hope the following helps explain. The direct debit in question left your account in September, October and November and during this time you were crediting funds to the account. As you did not credit the account and continued to make cash and card withdrawals from the agreed overdraft there was not enough money in your account when the direct debit was applied for in December. Whilst I appreciate that your direct debit to XXXX had not transferred across to your account [number 2], you were aware this payment was debiting from the account [number 1] Our records show that you arranged a credit to your account for £100 on 4th Jan 2011. You then made a cash withdrawal of £50 on 7th February taking you into your overdraft by £243. [of £250]. Unfortunately, your account has remained overdrawn and you have not made any credits to the account. As a result, charges have been applied and will remain valid. I have forwarded the enclosed cheque for £250 to our Collections and Recoveries Team. I would also suggest if you have not already done so, to speak with them to make arrangements to clear the remaining outstanding balance. This is our final response on to your complaint. If you remain unhappy and do not feel we have resolved your complaint to your satisfaction, you can refer your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service. I have enclosed a leaflet that explains how you can do this. If you decide to contact them, it should be within six months of the date of our previous letter dates 26th March [actually it should be within 6 months of your final response!] enclosing a copy of it, as they would need this for their investigation. I am sorry this is not the outcome you wanted but I hope that my letter clarifies our position. Yours sincerely Sonia Cookson [computer signed] Compliant Resolution Officer. So it appears I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place. They say the charges are valid and state that it’s because I ‘remained overdrawn’ - as my overdraft was had no fees/interest it never made any difference being overdrawn. On the 4/1/11 a direct debit was bounced for £58 – I paid £100 in the next day, assumed this would more than cover their charges and then withdrew £50 – a charge for £25 for the bounced cheque came out, then £50 unauthorised overdraft fee, then a £5 underfunding fee. Combined these took me over my overdraft limit and then I continued to get charges of £105 per month until the statement says they closed it on the 14.9.2011 [the default is dated 7.9.11 and the default notice 9.8.11 – shouldn’t these all be the same?] There is no copy of the agreement or the terms and conditions of the account in any of the SAR information I have received…is this important? They have still got both accounts shown as default on my credit files despite being told that 1 account shouldn’t have been sold and would be removed months ago. They have sent me a total of £310 to date as good will gestures, I’ve sent them £250 back as I believe that’s what I owed them and they still want £470 in charges. If they think they are right it seems strange that they haven’t offset them against the outstanding balance? Both these accounts state ‘gone away’ on my credit file status despite the fact that there was a very limited time I was out of touch with them and that was purely because they wouldn’t let me communicate with them via the phone or branch. Is there anything else I can do?

Hi, the landlord is actually my boss - he's not performed a credit check on me [for work or landlord duties - I've known him for years]. Its listed as a property valuation on my Equifax file and just states the year it was brought and the value at the time [which incidentally is wrong]. I just can't see understand A] what a property valuation is doing on a credit file, and B] what it has to do with me as it's not my property? Suppose I should call the enemy and see what they've got to say! J

Hi - quick question, I’m going through my credit and the painful process of correcting all the errors, mistakes and random things that shouldn't be on their. Is there any reason what the rented flat I live in shows up on my credit file as if it’s a leasehold I my name? – it’s a least hold to the landlord but I’m only a tenant, I’ve never had a leasehold show up for any other flats I’ve lived it – if its harmless it can stay but I suspect that when I apply for a mortgage this will flag up as a problem!

...we'll its been a month to the date today since Santander signed for my last letter - as mentioned above it contained a cheque to cover the legitimately owed £250 overdraft - the cheque hasn't been presented. I guess the next stage is to go to the FOS, I'm assuming this will take years to get a final result! - the issue I have is the account they said they'd remove is still being reported as 'Default' yet they said they'd remove it, and both accounts have a 'gone away' status despite Santander being aware of my address pretty much always. These negative entries are the only ones on my files and in the last year they have lead to me getting refused for an EE phone contract [this was when I realised there must be something on my file], I got rejected for an American Express card and and my bank gave me a loan for a car at 14.9% apr and not the advertised 5.1%apr - they said they didn't know why the system would only give me a higher rate as based on how I bank, the level of my savings and the salary coming in I was a prime candidate for the lowest rate [which I've had before from them] - this is really affecting me and I'd really like to get a mortgage in the next 18months! As this account is in dispute can I get them removed by the CRA's at least whilst the resolve is sought?

When I'd exhausted ShopDirects complaints they forwarded my last request for proof of the debt to Westcot in March. Westcot never acknowledged this so I wrote to them direct at the end of April, they acknowledged it at the start of May and today have confirmed they still don't have the answer - their letter today is just stating they still have no answers...I believe the leaflet they sent me originally said they will respond in 4 weeks unless its not possible to which it will be within 8 weeks which puts us in mid June. I'd be very surprised if this account is legitimate and if they have any paperwork for it!

Update: As per their first acknowledgment letter Westcot have not been able to provide ,e with a final response but today they have written to say they are still investigating, it's signed by a human which is something I guess. Do we know what the maximum time is to provide a conclusion? J

OK, should I copy BH in on any correspondence to the FOS? also I've had a look at my 'loan agreement' and where PPI is selected it says in accordance with clause 7 of the agreement - clause 7 of the credit agreement is not in relation to PPI so I'm assuming this is referring to a PPI agreement - seems a little misleading to me? J

...should I go back to BH one last time to state why I think I still have a valid claim - I just don't want the FOS to claim I havent exhausted the internal complaints procedure? After-all just because an agreement has a signature on it bares no relevance to the legitimacy in which it was sold? - Seems very convenient to just hide behind the fact the people who did the selling are no longer trading? J

Update: Received a response from Black Horse following my letter to remind them they had not responded to their letter dated 15th Feb 2013 within the designated time. Dear Mr E. I refer to your complaint about the sale of Payment Protection Insurance. Please find enclosed for your information a copy of the letter we have previously sent you in response to your complaint. Your sincerely Vicky Watts [PP’d] Senior Manager. So to reiterate – I wrote to them in Feb RE: PPI refund, they responded on the 14th Feb with the letter in an earlier post [number 12] refusing my claim – then on the 15th Feb I got another letter saying they were looking into it and would get back to me within 8 weeks, 8 weeks passed and no replay, I wrote again and said they were now outside of the 8 weeks and they’ve now sent me a copy of the first letter they sent from the 14th Feb! I’m not sure what to do now.

I'm not sure I understand the question - is it that the agreement is wording incorrectly and lists the site fees as VAT? If so I personally think you'd struggle to argue this as a reason to stop paying? I'm sure others will have further insight. It seems to me like you genuinely owe this money so looking for a technicality to get out of paying for a 37k caravan doesn't seem moral. Have you got an invoice from the sale, what does that say? I ask as 6k is approx. the correct figure of VAT for 31k isn't it? J

Quick update: So as per my first post in this thread, last month I applied for my statutory credit report – it showed 1 active account + 1 settled. This seemed a little light on information so today I thought I’d sign up for credit expert and start probing – had a load of problems getting recognised online so I called the helpdesk – can’t wait for that to hit my mobile bill – anyway long story short they deleted all my details to let me sign up to credit expert. Eventually I got in only to be met by a file that only shows only my current account. Interestingly the well-covered [above] Vodafone account is missing in action – and ironically the worthless credit score has a big red exclamation mark on it that says I could improve my score by having some ‘settled’ accounts on my file! It also says I have 94 linked addressed [which are all made up of variations of the same 5 addressed] So I called up again and asked what was going on only to be told that if I wanted more details to show I’d have to manually add more of my previous address details in – despite the guy on the phone saying he could see historic account information etc…I also said there are 2 address I don’t recognise in my linked addressed and he said “well don’t worry about adding those, you do have historical financial records showing at them but its not negative so you needn’t include it”! – This is hardly how I’d expect a company to act considering they allegedly portray accurate information! – and just because ‘I’m’ not adding these addressed doesn’t stop them being inaccurately there! Given that credit expert costs so much [after the freebie] I’m disappointed that I have to take charge of the level of information that’s on my credit file. A lesser person would have assumed they only had 1 account and been happy with that – the problem I have is that when I call up Experian can clearly see more information that I’m provided with [on both online and paper files] - and I’d bet my bottom dollar that if Experian can see this information then lenders can too – how can I ensure that the most up-to-date information is automatically shown? I feel I should really be able to provide just my name, date of birth, address and the rest should be automatically obtained following a few security questions. Speaking of which, when you sign up they ask you 3 random questions about your credit file – I answered these 3 questions about 3 accounts which were verified as correct answers – yet the accounts they were related too are not showing up! Rant over.

If its anything like a car loan I had with BH it will be a secure personal loan which they link to the vehicle for the 'security' aspect, and pop on the HPI register to stop you selling it (despite none of this being disclosed on the T&C). I'm not sure they will be too happy if you calling them to say what will happen if 'we' miss a payment because it sounds like you have no intention to pay whats owed, and if it is 0% interest they will surely be losing out somewhere? I'm not suggesting anything just playing devils advocate given my past grievances with BH. J

...after much digging it seems like this type of account is no loner offered and that they sent out this letter in Nov / Dec 2012 stating that as of Feb 2013 the charges for this type of account would increase considerably from that originally signed up for - which also explains why he's gone from a couple of pounds per month in fees to the 'maximum' £150! http://www.santander.co.uk/csgs/StaticBS?blobcol=urldata&blobheader=application%2Fpdf&blobkey=id&blobtable=MungoBlobs&blobwhere=1223428601620&cachecontrol=immediate&ssbinary=true&maxage=3600 I know he was moving house in Dec 2012 so theres a every chance there was an overlap in address as he says he's only ever had statements off Santander - the sad truth is if he'd received this letter he still wouldn't have understood it. I'm assuming this change in fees was an attempt to push people to the 123 account? Unless anyone has a better idea I'm going to write to Santander on his behalf, tell them that he's not had the letter, state his position and see if we can get a refund on the excessive charges - I'll keep you posted. J

I wonder if anyone can help. I’ve been helping my cousin straighten out his finances as he’s dyslexic and doesn’t understand his statements – I suspect he’s also got dyscalculia as numbers just don’t stack up for him. He has a Santander account and when I log online for him it says the product is a ‘preferred in credit rate account’ but I can’t seem to find any information on this account online. He’s banked with Santander for about 18 months and although he has a £100 overdraft facility which he’s dipped in and out off on occasion he’s generally had no chargers bigger than a few pounds here and there for the overdraft facility; that was until last month when he started getting paid monthly instead of weekly. He basically went form getting paid £200 a week to making the last £200 last 5 weeks so needless to say he went over his £100 limit. The charges so far are as follows for last month: Daily unarranged fee £30 Daily unarranged fee £20 Paid item fee £25 [for a £6.19 debit card transaction] Paid item fee £25 [for a £26.00 debit card transaction] Paid Item fee £25 [for a £51.51 Direct Debit] He’s given me access to his online banking and when I first logged on his account was £133 overdrawn – I’ve increased his overdraft allowance to £200 to minimise the charges and I’ve paid a chunk of money in to bring it back into credit, however on the 25th of this month the following charges are pending: Daily unarranged fee £75 Paid item fee £25 [for a £51.51 Direct Debit] Paid item fee £25 [for a £5 debit card transaction] Pain item fee £25 [for a £42.66 Direct Debit] I assume there will be some charges next month too as he was over his overdraft limit until today and 2 direct debits have also been paid out. So for now he’s going to be OK with my help, and I’ve opened him a basic account elsewhere which I’ve set up a weekly standing order from his Santander account to give him his disposable cash – I guessed this would protect his bills money and take away the room for error. The question I have is are these fees he’s been paying justified? £75 a month for an overdraft facility seems steep – when I had a £3000 OD with Nationwide I think it was only £19 a month in interest! Not to mention being charged £25 for a £5 payment which they could have declined! All insight welcome. J

they've just changed all there accounts so I wouldn't be surprised if they've changed her account to a different one that has kicked the overdraft charges into action.

I agree that a SAR is prob the right way to go - I bank with Nationwide and on the few occasions I've gotten into a pickle I've usually called into branch and they usually print 15 months of transactions off for me - they can also switch you back to paper statements without charge... ...I've also had £360 refunded to my cousins account for charges and about £500 on mine in the past 12 months - I just went in and explained that I wasn't happy and that I wanted their help and they came good - I suspect this is a rare ocurance but it might be worth a visit. RE: cheque - they will write you out a cheque in branch from your own account even if you don't have a cheque book.

Which company is reporting it as settled - Nationwide or the KPR - if its Nationwide it may be that it is settled to them as KPR have bought it - if so I would expect it to show back up with KPR as the owner?

I'd suggest a CCA request to Capital 1 - or maybe straight in with a SAR - then come back here with your findings.

I’m still waiting for a reply to my follow up letter – they've not acknowledged it but it has been signed for. I also sent them a £250 cheque to cover the overdraft which I owed – they’ve not cashed that yet either! - I don't want them to use me owing them as an excuse for their mistakes / further charges...besides I'm not trying to evade debt here just straighten out the mess they have made! Another question I have; How long should it take for Santander to update information on my credit report? I ask as both of these accounts state ‘gone away’ yet I've been in touch with them for over 6 months now, and I don’t think I ever ‘went away’ for long enough to add it to my file. Also they agreed to remove one of these accounts in March, my credit file has been through 2 update cycles since then but they both still show. J

are 'deposit' accounts not the same as bonds? i.e. you open with a balance and you can not add to it? the advantage of a notice account is they wont give you the money before the specified date and you can normally make as many payments in as you like...?

...the nearest thing I can think of would be a notice account - choose one with the longest notice - I think 180 days is the most I've seen - so whilst you can make withdrawals it takes 3-6 months to get the money after you notify them that you want to make a withdrawal. They often operate via post too which makes access a nightmare... Would that work? http://www.moneysupermarket.com/savings/notice-accounts/

just look for savings accounts that state 'no withdrawals / withdrawals not permitted'... ...I'm not sure if what you are describing is for a one off lump sum - if so it sounds like a 'fixed bond' to me - you can set them up, they [can] offer slightly better rates than ISAs etc. once its opened with a fixed sum [of your choice] you can't pay extra in, and if you withdraw before the end date you lose all the interest. you can get all sorts of periods from 3 months to 10 years if you shop around. IMO an ISA is better and you can get ISAs that don't allow withdrawals - well again they do but you sacrifice the interest.

Update: Received a letter from Robinson Way today - they claim they've written to me, called me & possible already visited my home and that my account remains unpaid. They've done none of the above things and this is the first letter I've had - the letter goes on to say the usual things about calling them if I can't pay so they can put an arrangement in place. I might send them a response and copy Satander in as I requested that they stopped debt collection whilst this account was in dispute! J

I’m not going to hijack this thread but in a nutshell: Debt for £500 defaulted in say 2003 Payments agreed @ £X per month x ‘X’ months Each payment recorded as an ‘OK’ on file. Debt repaid 2007. Stayed there for the past 5.8 years and is due to drop off this summer – its current status is settled but you can see back 6 years so the last couple of payments are visible which say OK and it says in the account summery ‘payment history’ or words to that effect ‘Default’ I just assumed that as there was activity on the account in the past 6 years it would show?

I think this is what I was trying to get at in my previous post - EG: I had a couple of 'satisfied' debts that we're paid off less than 6 years ago but defaulted maybe 10 years ago - the accounts are marked as 'settled' but they state that the accounts 'worst' payment was 'Default' - to my thoughts this is almost as bad as a Default? So if this is the case coochy would be prolonging the trace of a default by dragging out the payments for an account that's been previously defaulted?