Barclaycard

[happy1970]

Hi, I work for Barclaycard and am very happy to dish the dirt. In fact any questions with regards to how the collections side works at Barclaycard i am happy to tell you. post something on here and i will endeavour to give you a response.

 

[shane5408]

hmm,

 

you'll forgive me if I'm slightly wary happy1970

 

OK here's a question for you, in most instances when Cabot take over a debt from Barclays a letter is received that is supposedly from Barclays notifying the debtor of the notice of assignment, I think we call it 'the goodbye letter' here on CAG, can someone from the Cabot Fan Club please post up a copy. Now it is widely believed that this letter is in fact produced by Cabot and not Barclays, I know some of us have SAR Barclays and found no evidence of this supposed letter. Cabot have neither denied nor confirmed anything. Could you shed some light on the subject? Is it Cabot who create and send these letters, just as we suspect

 

regards,

shane

[Michael Browne]

Welcome Happy1970,

 

Any input would be very helpful. I suggest you post on the Barclaycard thread as well :

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/barclaycard/

 

Two things:

1. As a bank worker, forum rules ask that you inform the Forum adminstrators first.

 

2. Even though you are here to help, be prepared for some stick from aggrieved Claimants

[blueskies]

Hello and welcome Happy. It is always nice to have employees of the financial institutions assist us with help and advice but I strongly advise you to be very careful about what you post in an open forum.

[happy1970]

Okay

I think that first of all I need to explain how barclaycard collections works. first of all they are based in Kirkby in Liverpool. They have currently outsourced work to Delhi hence why you may sometimes get calls from our foreign friends. All accounts are dealt with in cycles ie months behind. they are dealt with up to 6 months by the general staff then up to a further two months on top of that before the debts are sold on.

This is where it gets interesting. Months 1 and 2 are dealt with by Delhi for inbound calls .. ie you call them and for outbound they are dealt with by Kirkby centre ( where you may get a snotty 18 year old that knows nothing about life talking to you as if you were something on teh bottom of their shoes)

Months 3 to 6 goes to Mercers ........... Mercers are Barclaycard.... this is teh biggest joke of all. I could be speaking to you one minute as Barclaycard about one of your accounts and then I could call you about another of your accounts as Mercers...............

With regards to Cabot ... accounts go to them when barclaycard have decided to see off a book /portfolio of debts .. If you get a letter from Cabot it is one that has been printed by them... not Barclaycard. They only print off the ones with the Barclaycard and the Mercers headed paper.

 

Ask me more and I will divulge more ....

[Michael Browne]

One more thing, make very sure that anything you post cannot identify you or where you work. The Banks monitor these sites and do not like insiders posting.

[shane5408]

OK, thanks for that Happy, was aware of the charade with regards to Mercers.

 

I have another question, with regard to Barclays using different dept/companies to handle the debt be it mercers, or the contact centre at Kirby etc is there a unified system that all these dept/companies use? By this i mean often we find one dept tries to enforce a debt in clear violation because a CCA request has been sent placing the account in dispute etc. Is it simply Barclays being so unorganized when they breach the oft guidelines on debt collection because 'one hand is doing one thing while the other is doing something completely different' or do they knowingly continue to send dozens of letters and make countless phonecalls in a deliberate attempt to beat the debtor into submission?

[happy1970]

The problem that they have is that this year they decided to close down the manchester customer contact centre, then open two new centres in Delhi to deal with the work that manchester had been doing .... basically to save some money. Their is a massive turnover of staff at the Kirkby centre, what is happening is taht all the good staff that have been their for a long time are leaving because they are being treated like garbage. hence new staff .. poor training and no one signs from teh same book hence you may get someone with a brain who will look at the situation and help as best they can ( few and far between now ) or you will get some child who will basically read from one of the scripts. Not help or advise and basically send you a letter. One the dialling system if no one can get in touch with you ( you may be working / out etc ) they will send you a letter to get in touch. If someone then works that account on a manual queue they may well also send you a letter again having not checked if one has gone out already. They do not queue the accounts properly in a hold queue in fact managers will say at times not to place on hold as they want to " Batter " the calls ( for want of a better word) this is why you may get several calls in the same day.

[shane5408]

Working in collections I'm sure you get your fair share of letters from debtors challenging the legality of the alleged agreements we've been sent in response to a CCA. Recently a document wa leaked from the intranet site of Natwest purporting they would as a creditor reconstruct agreements should they no longer hold them from data already keyed on their systems. i would like to ask what steps Barclays would take in order to attempy to satisfy a CCA request, should they no longer hold the original. You may be aware there are Regulations that allow certain omissions which is what creditors always hide behind in not sending the original. Do barclays send reconstructed agreements or false copies to try and mislead the debtor into the false representation they are legally bound to continue paying the allegled debt?

[happy1970]

First of all working in collections we do not get so see any of the lettersthat customers send in. All teh letters are send to Northampton then forwarded to Kirkby and then a post team read the letters and place a small amount of the information that was in the letter on to the screens for the collectors to read. In Kirkby letters are kept in files , if a letter has gone to customer services with regards to charges they microfiche those... unfortunately as they work on a totally different system than kirkby works on it means that staff at kirkby cannot read any information on their pcs on micro fiche and have to go via customer services for them to read all of the information . Barclays bank do not have anything to do with barclaycard .... they are two divisions and deal with their accounts in seperate ways..I wouldn't know what barclays bank does as have no dealings with the bank itself so can't help you with anything to do with the banks side ... only the credit card side. .

[happy1970]

I do know that they can tidy up information on accounts as have been privvy to seeing this happen on an account that I dealt with a long time ago. Everything in teh memos that had been written on the account was wiped off .. same as they can get amended the information that goes to the credit ref agencies. They just need a verygood reason to do so. Only the priviledged few can do this .... andf i do not necessarily mean the managers as unless the sun shines out of your **** you are not given the codes to do so.

[seabro]

hi happy1970, kind of you to offer to help.

 

My question is, is there any evidence that Barclaycard are worried in any way about the increase in people exercising their rights under the CCA 1974. I know thanks to the likes of CAG there must have been a huge increase in such cases and if I were a financial institution that took a gamble on over simplified but not compliant agreements I would be worried!

 

Any memo's gone round or specific training in how to deal with this new breed of clued up debtor?

[happy1970]

I do not think that they are worried. thing is that everything is very distorted within barclaycard. all complaints with regards to charges etc are dealt with by the customer services section in delhi. As far as Kirkby centre is concerned "they" feel that they are dealing fairly with customers! Ha Personally I think that it has all gone down the pan in the past few years but that is my view. Anyway. they have the diallers set to call all accounts at least twice a day. Everyday until contact is made and something is resolved on the account. My advice get withheld numbers barred on your landline as they cannot get through via the dialling system on these. They are not interested in the new breed of clued up debtor. they will use threats such as affecting credit rating, will get someone to call at your property ( scotcall is the favourite and my heart goes out to the guys and girls that do this ... what a cr***y job) sell debt on register your account.. etc etc .. they have these new american people dealing with things that are NOT clued up to how debt is in the uk ... the whole cheery american way of doing things makes me vomit ..

What scares them are the people who have teh balls to go to their cab and offer the £1.00 token payment ... If the cab take the account on board Barclaycard do not like it as theyhave to stop the interest.

[alfwithhair]

Hello Happy1970

 

By the cheery american lot, I take it you are refering to Alliance One.

[happy1970]

No .... I'm on about the new management for Barclaycard that are all Americans

[alfwithhair]

Oh, so who this this american company Alliance One that barclaycard have as an agent to collect on their behalf ?

[shane5408]

Hi Again,

 

Is there any criteria that decides which DCA Barclaycard will use or is it a case of take your pick (After Mercers ofcourse)

[sequenci]

Thanks for the info

 

Why do barclaycard ignore cccs and national debtline when they help with the funding of both?

[sytra]

Why when i cca'd Barclaycard did they come back with a request for my signature when they had all the information they needed to identify me from acc no, address etc? they seem to be asking for signature a lot lately?

 

Sytra

[happy1970]

Barclaycard do not like to deal with the cccs or national debtline as it means that they would have to accept in most cases payments of just a £1 a month and that they would have to stop the interest. Remember they want to get interest from you so not in their best interest to deal with cccs or national debtline.

[happy1970]

Barclaycard have a list of about 20 different debt colls agencies that they use .. basically it is the luck of the draw as to who you will get. Also as they sell portfolios of debts it means that a whole lot of accounts get lumped together .... also quite a few of the dcas are one and the same under different names... when I have a moment to spare i'll list them, makes for interesting reading !

[happy1970]

Barclaycard use lots of different agencys at the moment to collect.. basically they are trying different methods so as to collect the bad debt... In all honesty if they were a bit pickier as to who they lent money to or didn't lend so much they wouldn't be in teh position that they are in now !

[happy1970]

Re signature ... maybe they lost paperwork of yours??? They should have your signature on file several times !

[shane5408]

Barclaycard have a list of about 20 different debt colls agencies that they use .. basically it is the luck of the draw as to who you will get. Also as they sell portfolios of debts it means that a whole lot of accounts get lumped together .... also quite a few of the dcas are one and the same under different names... when I have a moment to spare i'll list them, makes for interesting reading !

 

 

interesting reading indeed!

[shane5408]

with regards to selling debts and in quantity as portfolio how are the Deed Of Assignments done?