after being heartened by the forum i took on the bank of scotland who were continuing to charge me interest on a "dead" account which had accumulated over several years to the tune of £3800 plus. after a few months of back and forth(letters , phone calls ) they eventually caved and accepted that they had unfairly continued to charge interest on the ammount i owed them and that the account would be zeroed and closed. i have all their documentation filed and indeed the has been zeroed and closed so................one in the eye for them!! i know its not quite the same as getting money back but i no longer get threatening phone calls every so often from blair oliver and scott ltd demanding that i make payment. i accepted that i was due the bank the money that i had overdrawn and they eventually accepted that i had paid them back in full so we were even and i was not charged any interest since they wrote it off once i had paid them back in full.

thanks progenic7 for the help. i have already sent off a prelim letter and they have intil 13/04 to respond.

anyone????

After many phone calls i eventually got a customer services lady at HBOS/Bank of Scotland who noted my complaint,gave me a reference number,and told me she would pass my details to retail bank collections for someone to take "ownership" of the complaint. Here is the letter they sent to me. Naturally I am concerned that you have found cause for complaint and at the outset please accept my apologies for the inconvenience this has caused you. Your concerns are that after your account was passed to our debt recovery agents in 1999 we continued to add charges and interest resulting as of today in a balance of £xxxx.xx. charges and interest were added to your account after you used your switch card when no cash was available. these have continued to date. I have contacted Blair Oliver & Scott who after reviewing your account have agreed to send it to their general recoveries department with a view to refunding the interest and charges back to your account. They will write to you in due course. their comments were for you "not to worry it will be sorted out for you". the telephone number for BOS is 08702 405 138. We do look to provide a first class service to our customers on every occasion; if we have fallen short of such standards in this particular instance then I would offer my sincere apology. You recently received a leaflet explaining our procedures. Should any of your concerns remain unresolved please let me know what you would like me to do to put matters right. We are keen to resolve your concerns,if we are unable to do so we'll provide you with details of how you can contact the Financial Ombudsman Service for assistance. if I do not hear from you within the next eight weeks I will assume you are satisfied with our response to your letter. Yours etc etc. just as an aside ...........i did not write them a letter, i phoned. What is the general thought about this letter? Does it seem that they are accepting liability for creating a self generating account through charges and interest? Any input much appreciated.

first of all,how is this for a bit of cheek! bank of scotland took my £10 cheque (for SAR) and opened a brand new account in my name to deposit it........then withdrew £5 and left me with a £5 balance !!!! bizarre or what? anyway, i have all my bank statements except one and their time is up tommorow 28/03/07,bet it arrives. have spoken to so many people my head is spinning. the bank say "talk to blair,oliver and scott".......blair etc say "your dispute is with the bank,go talk to them". blair etc eventually sent me screen dumps from my account showing all my payments but no info regarding the original debt of £619.88. i spoke to another guy today who says "someone must have misunderstood your request and i will get right on it". so frustration is oozing out of my every pore. blair etc have confirmed several times verbally that they were passed the account at £619.88 and that i have paid £3080 however according to them i still owe £3800 plus. both the bank of scotland and blair etc state that the account continued to be used after it was passed to blair etc but both are either unwilling or unable to give me the full details. since it was so long ago(1999) i cant remember if the account was used and accrued further debt but if i was responsible for more than the £619.88 then i would accept that responsibility, the problem comes back to the bank and blair etc not supplying the full details of when and how the account went belly-up. i am at the stage where i have drafted a letter to the bank along the lines of..........£619.88 was passed to blair etc and i acknowledge this ,however i have paid £3080 and want some of it back. i am willing to add 30% to the £619.88 for the banks administration but would like the balance back with 5% added. the statements supplied by the bank start from january 2000 and at that time the overdue amount was £3900+...... seven years on and even though i have paid £3080 they still reckon i owe them £3800+. still cant figure how it got from £619.88 to £3900+ although a large proportion will be charges. i reckon that i should be dealing with the bank and not blair etc because all monies paid were paid to the bank (via blair etc) and all charges made were made by the bank as is shown on the statements supplied by the bank. as i have said earlier, the bank are saying deal with blair etc.we dont hold the account anymore.................so how come they could supply me with all the bank statements if they cant access the account due to it being with blair etc? i seems that the whole account has been mis-managed by the bank and blair etc with me picking up the tab. almost at my wits end.

hi again, spoke to blair,oliver and scott yesterday and they told me that the debt was passed to them during 1999.(this is prior to the statements i was sent by bank of scotland and as such the information i really want........when the account went into the red,when the bank closed the account.....is not available). the advisor said that the original debt was for £619 and that i had paid £3080 to date! she also said that my recorded delivery letter had not as yet reached my file. she also confirmed that the account was being sent to administration but had as yet not been sent! once again i contacted the bank of scotland who said that they would phone me back on monday 26/02/07 with any info they could find on the account. they also suggested that my problem is with blair,etc and etc and not them. i reminded her that i was still awaiting statements from 2004 to present. should i now send a s.a.r to blair, oliver and scott or be patient and see what developes?

hi, have today received the first package of statements going back to january 2000. my understanding is that i would only be able to take some action from charges made from january 2002..........is this correct? also the account was closed by bos sometime in 1999 and was only used by them to deduct my voluntary agreed monthly payments and add interest since thestatements supplied start at number 84 jan 2000,i cannot see when exactly the account (a) went into the red and (b) was stopped by bos. blair oliver and scott ltd confirmed to me today by telephone that the debt was passed to them in 1999 and was for £619.88. they also told me that to date i have paid into the account £3080. so you probably guessed i am somewhat confused as to what to do now? non of the statements i have show anything other than my monthly payment and their interest added........(cash cow). advice gratefuly welcomed.

thanks progenic7 and livelylad for the encouragement......... will continue to update as and when:)

oops.........mods can you please move to halifax nd bank of scotland forum please? thanks

bos reply arrived today........lightning quick considering i only posted the s.a.r on thursday and they signed for it on friday. they sent the acknowledgement the same day!! in actual fact they sent me the original and also a photo copy....methinks perhaps i have their file copy as well. here is their exact response: DEAR MR XXXXXX I REFER TO YOUR LETTER RECEIVED THIS MORNING REQUESTING A LIST OF TRANSACTIONS AND CHARGES ON YOUR ACCOUNTS SINCE OPENING.AS A BANK WE ARE ONLY OBLIGED TO KEEP RECORDS FOR SEVEN YEARS,I HAVE TODAY ORDERED YOU STATEMENTS DATING BACK TO FEBRUARY 2000.AS A RESULT OF A SYSTEM CHANGE IN MAY 2004 THESE WILL ARRIVE IN TWO BATCHES. REGARDING YOUR REQUEST FOR INFORMATION ON ANY OCCASIONS WHEN YOUR ACCOUNT HAS REQUIRED MANUAL INTERVENTION FROM AN HBOS MEMBER OF STAFF. WE ARE UNDER NO OBLIGATION TO HOLD THIS INFORMATION ON FILE AND AS WE DO NOT KEEP A RECORD OF THIS I AM UNABLE TO COMPLY WITH YOUR REQUEST. YOURS SINCERELY KIRSTY MACBEAN BANKING ADVISOR this is how it is typed except i have capitalised it..........no full stops or commas etc. is it a good thing or bad thing that they claim they have no records of any manual intervension on the accounts, and is it true that they are under no obligation to hold that information on file? since i sent them £10 should i not expect the full contents of all the information they hold on me?

i have today sent by recorded delivery my subject access request to the bank of scotland. after quite a few phone calls i eventually established from customer services in rosyth that i should send the request and the cheque to the branch which held my account before it was passed to blair oliver and scott. at one point one girl told me that she was not allowed to give out the customer services phone number!!! i was also advised that the mound is now only a branch and not their head office. i discovered also that if i only wanted my statements then the charge would be £5 and not £10. i also sent a recorded delivery letter to blair oliver and scott asking them to confirm in writing that they had closed my account as per the telephone call i had with their advisor on monday 12/02/07 and to supply a statement of all monies paid to them over the past 5 years. lets wait and see.......................

does anyone have an email addres for these people?

by way of explanation,i got into a mess when i had a breakdown which went untreated for several years and eventually i lost track of this particular financial problem. that said.........for the past 5 years i have been voluntarily paying blair oliver and scott ltd £40 per month for a debt to the bank of scotland for a sum of which i have no record!! i today eventually got the blair etc phone number and asked them the state of play. they told me that i still owed over £3000 and that would i like to review my monthly payments. confused i asked what the original debt was and the advisor was almost as surprised as i was to find that the ammount was £619!! she told me she would check with a manager and call back. i called back after a few hours and was told by another advisor that she would check with a manager........on hold........she came back and told me that they were passing a request to administration to shut the account. i asked her to request administration to send me a letter confirming the account closure and also a full statmnt of monies paid. i guess i should expect to wait a reasonable time for this (a week?). assuming i get the info do i then get in touch with the bank and ask that all the interest be repaid to me ? any and all guidance appreciated:)

hi,just wanted to introduce myself to you good people and wish us all wel in our endevours whatever they may be.