Just discovered A&L default from 2 years ago from Santander.

[debt-stressed]

Hi all,

I am hoping for some advice as I am completely stumped by what I have just discovered:

Background Info
A few years ago I got ill and was unable to work, my husband who was self employed spent a lot of time caring for me and we struggled to manage financially. We had a lot of debt (almost 50K!) and were able to arrange payment agreements with our creditors to allow us to reduce the payments and some allowed us to reduce/freeze the interest. We have been continuing with the payments as agreed and have reduced this amount down to around 28k.

We had a joint current account with Alliance and Leicester at the time that had a £1500 agreed overdraft on it, but I'm not sure the exact amount we owed them, it must have been more than the agreed overdraft. We stopped using the account as any money we put in would automatically be swallowed by the overdraft and we needed every penny we had and came to an agreement with A&L to repay it at £40 per month, which we have continued to do without fail.

Back in August I had a letter informing me that Santander were taking over A&L and future correspondence would be from them. I had a couple of letters from Santander saying that payments were not being received but after calling them and checking my bank was assured they were received and the letters were in error. I was therefore happy the agreement was still in place and as the amount owed is now only £289 we would be paid off very soon and could cross a debt off the list.

Current Situation
I checked my credit report a couple of days ago and Santander have registered the account as in default. I called them today and they said it was registered by A&L in 2008 and there is nothing they can do. However my credit report says:
amount in default : £369 (which was the amount owed when they took on the account)
amount of debt : £329 (which was last months total before I paid the £40 to get todays total owed)
default registered : 21/01/2008

So I am confused as I never received notice of the default and prior to Santander taking over this account A&L never registered a default on my credit report it was always categorised as satisfactory. I have spent the last few years juggling finances and health and had tried to tackle them all to keep my credit history in shape as I would like to buy a house again in the future when our finances are stable again. This has come as a great shock to me and is upsetting to think this could ruin my credit report.

Could someone advise me where I stand with this as:

a) I never knew about the default until Santander took over the account and listed it on my credit report.
b) The defaulted amount is for the amount owed as of August this year.
c) I have asked Santander to send me a copy of the paperwork about the default as I do not have it (and want to see it to believe it!) but they said they can't and said someone from credit control would ring me back to try and help (but I have a feeling that was just to get me off the phone!).

I guess ideally I am hopeful someone knows a way I can get this removed as I have tried so hard to keep my file clean during my problems.

Thanks for reading and for any help you can give.

Rachel

[Never-In-Doubt]

Re: Just discovered A&L default from 2 years ago from Santan

Hiya it looks like a&l never added the default to that credit agency. You know a&l used to only report to experian but Santander report to experian and equifax so it may have been on the other cra file. Which have you got?

Ok regards to the default - if the lender sends it to your registered address then it is classes as served. The only way to get it wiped is to send a sar and check for errors. However, you'll also wonder why the amount is the recent amount? Cos Santander probably just added it at that date so used the current balance and not the original defaulted balance. Therefore they can amend it, it is not enough to call it unlawful unless you have an older credit report which shows it with different dates.