BCW chasing 11yrs barclays account 'just' defaulted? **WON+COMPO**

[silverfox1961]

Current accounts become dormant after 5 years I think, if they are not in use. As others have said an SAR will be useful. I am thinking fraudulent use of the account, wrong payment transaction put to the account in error or forgotten transactions still going through. If you did not inform the bank of moving, they could have sent a debit card to the old address, which someone has used.

 

 

Hmm! not so sure whether this applies to an account in arrears. Dormant accounts are where there has been no activity on an account in credit where the bank have attempted to contact the customer with no response. The government then nick it.

[silverfox1961]

1. in Oct. 2002, the account had a zero balance. I assumed I had closed the account and received no correspondence from them.

 

That is a problem. Did you close the account or just not use it?

2. In June 2003, an annual direct debit (around £100) from my Professional institute (the CIPD) came out and I went overdrawn. This DD was cancelled (by the bank in 2011).

Was this something you had forgotten about or had you made alternative arrangements with CIPD. Did you give them the new account details? Did they take the DD from the wrong account?

 

3. In September 2004, I moved house, and the bank marked me as "gone away". I set up a post forwarding service for 6 months. By their own admission (on the phone) they did not attempt to contact me by post from this date onwards.

 

The big question. Why did the bank not contact you once the account went overdrawn?

 

4. The DD continued to be taken out each year, and the bank began to charge me interest. Initially, the was £2/month but increased exponentially as the debt increased, so that by 2013, the was £23 / month.

 

So, for 11 years the DD was taken and the bank failed to contact you sooner. BCOBS comes to mind here.

 

5. Other than the DD, which I did not know about, I had no contact with the bank until I found out they were chasing me for the debt.

 

I suggest you read up on BCOBS as the bank has to treat you fairly and if there was another option than just paying the DD and charging you for the privilege then they should have done that. By them not attempting to contact you, they have failed in their duty of care.

 

http://fshandbook.info/FS/html/handbook/BCOBS

 

(sorry-it is a long a arid read)

[silverfox1961]

Barclays.

 

Moorcroft have very little data on this account so they would probably refer you back to Barclays.

 

I was having a think about the BCOBS angle. The new rukes did not come into being until fairly recently so before that, The Banking Code would need to be referred to.

 

It is basically the same in that they have to treat a customer fairly.

 

The fact that they have accepted that they never contacted you about going into an unauthorised overdraft is very poor practice and I would think the Ombudsman would agree if it got that far.

 

As for Moorcrap, a simple letter telling them to put the account on hold as this is being disputed with Barclays. They must do so until any complaint is resolved.