Night Monkey's diary

[Night Monkey]

Strange goings on with two HSBC accounts, one current and one credit card. A ClearScore flag a couple of days ago alerted me to the fact that the credit card account was being removed from the file, and today I get two envelopes with one letter from HSBC and one from Lowell in each telling me that the accounts had been sold on.

As to the detail, the HSBC letter says that the accounts have been sold to Lowell Portfolio I Ltd ('LPI') who have appointed Lowell Financial Ltd ('Lowell') to manage them. There are the usual smatterings of the 'contact us, we can help' blurb.

The £108 HSBC account which appears on the credit file that I haven't diaried appears to not exist as far as HSBC are concerned and is not included in these shenanigans.

I await Lowell's contact with interest, which I will studiously ignore. In the meantime I'm minded to GDPR Lowell, does anybody have thoughts on this, or the best timing?

[Night Monkey]

Night Monkey's Third Annual Report

We've now reached three years since stopping all payments on five alleged debts so once again, primarily for my benefit, a summary of where we are in a single post.

MBNA
Last full payment early 2018, defaulted October 2018
Stopped payments to StepChange in March ’20.
Standard letters and texts continue, all ignored.
Current status UE since 'varied T&Cs are unavailable.'

Barclaycard
Last full payment early 2018, defaulted August 2018.
Stopped payments to StepChange in March ’20.
Current status UE due to failed legal action by PRA.

Santander
Last full payment early 2018, not appearing on credit reports for some reason.
Stopped payments to StepChange in March ’20.
The last contact from drydensfairfax was February '21. Since then statements and a transfer to ‘Financial Support’, together with a random refund (to the account) of £12.
Current status UE since a CCA was supplied but it’s a random one not specific to me, with no signature.

HSBC credit card
Last full payment early 2018, defaulted October 2018.
Stopped payments to StepChange in March ’20.
With Wescot April ’21, no contact since.
Currently UE pending production of requested CCA.

HSBC current account
Last full payment early 2018, defaulted February 2019.
Stopped payments to StepChange in March ’20.
With Wescot March ’21, no contact since.
Currently UE pending production of requested CCA.

All the defaults are now more than four years old, and while they’re showing on a credit report they’re not highlighted in the summary. We are halfway through the six-year UE journey. How time flies, etc.

From reading other diaries I’m expecting the next eighteen months to be relatively quiet, followed by a flurry of activity as we approach statute barred status.

Onward & upward...

[Night Monkey]

...and the mention of the default in the summary duly disappears, sort of as expected just after the four-year mark.

All the defaults are listed in the 'accounts' section, the most recent update to any of them being July 2021.

[Night Monkey]

A brief update to the number of defaults I have listed with ClearScore, see post #157 above for full details.

The most recent default is now four years and a few days old and unlike the others hasn't disappeared from the summary, so that view still says that I have 1 default. All six defaults are listed in the full report as expected, since they are not yet six years old.

So, just as I think I'm starting to understand things ...

If the above changes I'll report back, but as far as everything else goes everyone seems to be in silence mode. Long may that continue.

[Night Monkey]

Type of account - HSBC overdraft
Date commenced - Approx 2000
Approx balance - £3847
Date last paid - Early 2018
Default date - February 2019
Are you on arrangement or not paying - Not paying (StepChange DMP canceled March '20)
Status - default
Account owner - HSBC Repayment Services
Current status: UE pending production of requested CCA

The smallest of updates, I've just received notification that a legacy payment of £118 from a draw-down pension I closed a few years ago would be paid 'into the account held on file' - meaning that it would disappear into an overdraft I no longer have access to. After arguing that letting the payment 'bounce' would automatically result in a cheque being issued I convinced them that the sensible way forward was to cut straight to issuing a cheque. Hopefully that's Christmas dinner paid for .

[Night Monkey]

As an aside if anybody wants a play in Google Sheets and enters a date (in this case of a default) in say cell C5 in the format =DATE(2019,3,8) then the elapsed number of days can be calculated by a formula in D5, =int(now()-C5).

In addition:

The elapsed years =D5/365
Years =DATEDIF(0,D5,"Y")
Months =DATEDIF(0,D5,"YM")
Days =DATEDIF(0,D5,"MD")

Those last three can be used to build a natural language summary of years / months / days elapsed to save anyone counting on their fingers from several default dates like I used to .


=DATEDIF(0,D5,"Y")&" years "&DATEDIF(0,D5,"YM")&" months "&DATEDIF(0,D5,"MD")&" days "

[Night Monkey]

Two of the others are three years & eleven months old, so I’ll check again in a few weeks and report back

Two of the remaining three defaults that were flagged at the summary level are now four years and a few days old, and in turn are no longer highlighted - under 'let's improve' it states 'You have one default or repossession on your account'. All of them still appear in the full report as expected. So no major changes (the 'score' remains the same) but it does feel like another small step along the way.

We're a few months away from the last one reaching the four-year mark, I'll update if anything happens then.

[Night Monkey]

I’ve just been looking at my report on ClearScore to make sure that nothing untoward had appeared, & noticed that the ‘score’ had increased significantly. I don’t normally put much store in these but was intrigued at what might have changed, so looked deeper and saw that I was now being reported as having three defaults rather than six - the five noted in the diary and a ~£100 HSBC overdraft that had slipped under the radar and hardly seemed worth worrying about in the scheme of things. All expected defaulted accounts were listed in the accounts section.

However, cross-referencing these with my records shows that the accounts defaulting more than four years ago are no longer highlighted, so if I follow the ‘things to improve’ link it takes me to a list of the three younger accounts.

I haven’t looked to see if this pattern is repeated elsewhere, but wondered if anyone had seen anything similar - the defaults are still there and will presumably remain so until I reach the six years. I’m not looking for credit atm so it makes little difference, just looking for some understanding.

Two of the others are three years & eleven months old, so I’ll check again in a few weeks and report back .

[stuckinarut]

From reading other diaries I'm expecting a couple of quiet years and then a flurry of contact just before SB.

We'll see, but if you'd told me three years ago that I'd be partly enjoying the process I'd have struggled to believe you

Yes the time sure does fly past, Your next 3 will fly by as well

[Night Monkey]

I found the next 3 years were on the whole a lot quieter than the first 3

From reading other diaries I'm expecting a couple of quiet years and then a flurry of contact just before SB.

We'll see, but if you'd told me three years ago that I'd be partly enjoying the process I'd have struggled to believe you

[Still Waving]

Good progress.

I found the next 3 years were on the whole a lot quieter than the first 3.

[Night Monkey]

I've just noticed that today is the third anniversary of me joining this site, and starting my diary.

At that time I believed I'd have to spend the next ten years paying off some £35k of alleged debt, which was a crippling thought. Of those alleged debts one has now gone completely due to a failed court action by PRA and the rest are currently unenforceable. The defaults are between three & a half and four and a half years old, and the last payments made towards anything were over two years ago. We feel well along the road to getting free of our situation in 2019.

So, to anybody starting on the UE road now, know that time flies, the process doesn't have to be as intimidating as it might first seem and there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Onward and upward...

[Roger]

I've had the same email. Not intending to follow the link.

Tick and restart the Statute Bar?? ticking clock comes to mind!
IF THEY ARE SO CONCERNED WHY DON'T THEY SIMPLY SEND THE UPDATED VERSION?

[ca71]

A slight variant on the regular weekly email from PRA, it's an 'Updated Data Protection Information Notice'. It refers to a 'fair processing notice' sent to me when they acquired the alleged debt and invites me to click a link to review the updated version.

I have no intention of doing such, but wondered if anyone else has received something similar? Is it a valid part of their legal duties or a fishing expedition to check the validity of email addresses, or perhaps push for engagement?

Or am I doing the usual and overthinking?

I've had the same email. Not intending to follow the link.

[Still Waving]

If you have no contact with them they've nothing to process.