RBS Dirty tricks advice

[Guest imac]

Hi there any advice would be appreciated as RBS seem to be trying some dirty tricks in relation to my claim. Sorry this 1st post may drag on a bit, i'll try and keep it as short as possible.

 

Sent off for statements a while back and calculated they owed me just over £1500 in charges going back 5 years. I sent off my first request for repayment with schedule giving them 14 days to respond. The 14 days passed with no response so off went the LBA by recorded delivery on the 4th December, but lo and behold when i returned home later that day a letter was waiting for me from RBS Collections Centre, dated the 1st December saying;

 

"We have been trying to contact you by telephone the last few days regarding your above numbered account. Please call us on the above number on receipt of this letter.

It is important to note that if the position is not resolved within the next 7 days formal regulatory notices will be issued in accordance with the provisions of the Consumer Credit Act. In the meantime should you have Cheque Book and Highline/ServiceCard these should be returned

Collections Centre Manager"

There had been no attempt to call me and no letters from my branch previously to say there was any problem with my account. I have an agreed overdraft on my current account of £1100 to which i pay interest monthly and despite not working at present due giving birth to my 2nd daughter 4 months ago i have kept the account within the agreed overdraft. Obviously this was not the response i expected and I was not quite sure whether to complain to my branch or the collections centre. Then unbelivably on the 7th December i receive this next letter dated 5th December (The 2nd and 3rd were a weekend).

 

Balance £1,084.66Dr

Regrettably, requests to bring your account within the arrangements agreed have been unsuccessful. Matters have now reached a serious stage. The bank can now formally issue you with Default/Termination notices for the total amount you owe plus interest and charges.

Some of the actions open to the bank for accounts that have defaulted are:

-Registering your details with Credit Reference Agencies, which can affect your ability to obtain further credit in the future.

-Withdrawal of your banking arrangements.

-Passing details to our debt recovery dept who may commence legal action against you.

If we need to proceed down these routes, the cost of taking these actions will be added to the amount due by you to the bank. To avoid the above actions taking place please contact us immediately by telephone on the number above to with your proposals for repayment.

In the meantime if there are any chequebooks and cards connected to the account these must be returned to us for cancellation immediately. If the cards are not returned immediately, Recovery agents will be instructed to collect the cards.This will result in a fee of £125 being charged to your account.

Collections Centre Manager

To say I am fuming is an understatement. They have never contacted me before the letter of the 1st december to say there was a problem and sent the 2nd letter 2 working days after the 1st despite giving me 7 days in the 1st letter. Call me cynical but it looks to me like this is a direct bully boy tactic in respose to my request for £1500 in unlawful charges, they have yet to respond to my claim or LBA directly. Strangely enough I also got my usual statement today with the usual advice of overdraft interest to be applied on the 18th, no mention of any problem with any arangements. Any advice would be appreciated on who to deal with/complain to? Should it be my branch, the collections centre manager or the department that will deal with my LBA even though they have not responded yet. I have been a customer of RBS for 11 years and can't believe they would deal this way, not really the sincere dialogue i requested in my 1st letter eh!

[Qmart]

Hi i am looking at all info before i send my letter of to the rbs, can you tell me what advice that you have been given on the situation you have been put in.Im thinking about opening a new account and closing all of mine, i can do this as i have just come in to some money but am still waiting for it, and dont want to rock the boat untill i can close the account or just pay of and then close if they start this rubbish on me.

Regards.

[Guest imac]

Hi there, my thinking on is that this is a cynical attempt to scare me into dropping my request for repayment but since my agreed overdraft is lower(£1100) than the amount i am claiming back (Over £1500), i think they would be stupid to try for example registering a default with Credit Reference agencies, as it could be said that the entire overdraft and more are entirly down to unlawfull charges. I know there are draft letters on this site for demanding they stop any further action as the account is in dispute. I would prefer to deal with this in writing but it looks like i'm going to have to phone them

I'm hoping that someone more experienced or someone who has had this tactic used against them will be good enough to offer some advice/encouragement on the best way to fight back on this matter and hopefully this thread will help other people in the future.

[Guest imac]

Update and apologies to anyone that may have been put off claiming by what i wrote above. Phoned RBS today to find out what the hell was going on and was informed this was happened because i hadn't put any money in last month. Still don't know why they hadn't contacted me before sending it to collections and why the 2 threatening letters within 2 working days, but it seems like it may not have been a response to my claim after all. Seems to be all sorted on that front, i might put a wee complaint in about how they dealt with this issue but in the meantime i'm back to waiting for a response to my Letter before Action.

[Bookworm]

Phew. That's a relief, hey?

 

Well done for not letting them walk all over you. ;-)