Being Harassed by Santander Bank - Absolutely Disgusted

[NameChanger22]

A few weeks ago I started a thread on here about how Santander Bank kept repeatedly sending the mail of an ex-boyfriend to my address, even though we split up and he moved out 12 years ago, died 2 years ago and I have repeatedly sent mail back to them for 12 years and I have phoned them and made complaints about it twice. He owed them £1,200. He owed everyone money, he owed me a lot more than £1,200.

In the end I went into to my local branch and showed them my council tax bills for the last 6 years proving he hadn’t been living at my address for a long time as all the bills were addressed to me alone and I have the 25% single person discount.

A week ago I got a letter from Santander (addressed to me) saying I was wrong to complain but that they weren’t going to send anymore mail to my address.

Today I got a letter from Santander (addressed to The Personal Representative of the Late [ex boyfriend’s name]). First of all I’m not his representative, so that annoyed me. The letter went on to read:

“At this difficult time, customer care is obviously the main priority and I therefore wanted to advise you that we have referred the above mentioned account to our specialist probate partner, Phillips & Cohen Associates (UK) Ltd.

Until further notice, Phillips & Cohen Associates (UK) Ltd will be responsible for managing this account on our behalf, and where appropriate will take steps to come to an amicable arrangement for the repayment of the outstanding balance from any existing estate.
All future communications should be directed to Phillips & Cohen Associates (UK) Ltd in the first instance ….”

I cannot believe a bank can do this. They said a week ago they would stop sending post to my address and then this. I am extremely worried about this. Can they really get another company to come after me for the debt of a dead ex-boyfriend who hasn’t lived at my address for 12 years. I just don’t understand this at all. Please help and stop me from panicking, especially advise me if you have any real understanding of the law.

Thanks so much.

[Oliversmumsarmy]

Had any one mentioned that these debts were statu barred 6 years ago. They can’t chase anyone for the money after 12 years

Except that the bank would very likely start court proceedings before the 6 years is up, and they have standard procedures to do so to prevent statute barring

Except they haven’t done.

Don’t forget that the bank would have to come up with the original signed credit agreement just to take the ex bf to court which by the sounds of it they don’t have.

I spoke to one large bank and the guy on the other end of the phone was very pleased that he could deny me a copy of friends original credit agreement because they had destroyed everything more than a year old.

But they were still going to take friend to court.
I told friend to keep asking for her original credit agreement. As suspected they never took friend to court because they couldn’t.

I

[VanGoghsDog]

there is indeed a cat in hells chance that after 12 years this debt is still persuadable

There is simply no evidence that there has even been a debt for 12 years, where are you getting that from?

Ex and op split up 12 years ago, he never changed his address with the bank. No mention of any debt. For all we know the account was in regular use.

The debt query only arose after the death when the OP told Santander that he was deceased and to stop sending letters which they agreed to do. They then asked a debt collector/probate team to get involved as they obviously discovered an outstanding debt.

We have no information on when this debt arose. The OP has not said the ex had the debt for 12 years, the 12 years is just how long ago they split up. The debt could be a lot more recent. It might have arisen just before he died. It may well have been an ongoing overdraft that didn't become an issue until he died and the account was no longer in use, going in and out of credit (as most people's accounts do).

[NameChanger22]

I don't know when he got into debt with Santander, he never even told me had an account with them. Soon after he moved out I was getting letters from them, which I passed onto him straight away and told him he needed to let the bank know. He told me he had but I continued to get the letters. I then started either sending them back to the bank or mainly put them in the bin as I no longer had his address. He moved a lot of times. I don't know when the debt was from, but it is at least 8 years as I opened one of the letters around this time and saw he owed over £1,200. I think there were about 2 years when I got nothing from Santander and I assumed he had finally changed his address. But then after a while I started getting post from them again and what's when I started to get annoyed about it. There have only been letters from them about every 6 months, until recently.

[MenuPlant]

If someone dies isn't it published anywhere who their executors are so that people owed money can find how to get it?

I have been wondering this for a while.

[GuineaPiglet345]

MenuPlant Some executors choose to put an ad in the London Gazette but there’s no legal requirement to do so.

[MenuPlant]

Interesting thanks.

I would have thought some kind of online register would be superuseful would save a lot of pain for people like op

[Drum2018]

Ignore the letter and any more that arrive. Do not draw yourself into any further correspondence or discussion with Santander or the other company. Feel free to throw the letter back in the post with 'Not Known At This Address' on it. After all you are not the Personal Representative of your ex's estate so you shouldn't be opening post for same. It's not up to you to provide any information about his family or last known address. It's nothing to do with you. If they send any further letters just continue to return them if you have a post box nearby.

[Acis]

I understand this is my problem and I will deal try and deal with it.

But it isn't your problem. There is no way you can conceivably be liable for this debt.

[NameChanger22]

I meant being over stressed about situations is my problem. I do get very stressed very fast when anything difficult crops up and I don't really know how to feel calm and clear my head. I am working on it. Talking helps.

[Acis]

VanGoghsDog - you’re the one making a dogs breakfast of it. It probably is statu barred

It's statute, not statu.

Van Gogh is quite right, we have no idea if the debt is statute barred or not. We don't know when this debt was incurred - it may have been shortly before the boyfriend died two years ago. Time starts to run again if the debtor acknowledges the debt, and again the boyfriend may have done so just before he died.

And, in any case, this isn't OP's concern, because she can't possibly be liable for the debt anyway.

[Noloudnoises]

@NameChanger22 hello, have you sent the email to the people I suggested below? They'll get it first thing tomorrow, you see.

[Sweetpea55]

Santander will look very stupid.

[MonaLisaDoesntSmile]

Name and shame on twitter and facebook! Social media can be very helpful this way.

[YouWereRight]

Menu, I used to work processing loans of deceased, or possibly deceased customers, P&CA would talk around a database of deceased persons, but provided no details or what or where this is. Though I never pushed further.

NameChanger you'd do well to listen to what VanGoghs is typing. You seem to only appreciate posts agreeing that what Santander have done is vile, whilst seeming to feel attacked by posters offering actual information and help.

Santander, or any company,cannot take your word for it that he passed away. They cannot write off a debt on the word of one person, they need to confirm this. Their letter wasn't threatening to you, from the part you have posted, it was factual and sympathetic.

[NameChanger22]

I'm not on Twitter and I don't want to join. I don't have many friends on Facebook, I hardly ever use it, so hardly anyone would see it, I can't really see the point of that.

I have listened to everyone's advice and I appreciate it. Obviously there are lots of conflicting opinions on the thread and ideas from different people about what I should do next. I can't do all of them. I still don't know if I should do anything at all, so the most sensible thing to do is ask Citizen's Advice.

YouWereRight - I don't feel attacked at all, I don't know where you are getting that from. In fact, it has been really helpful to share this problem and chat today. So thanks again for listing to me.

[Cranky17]

I don't understand why you opened the letter, it wasn't for you, you should have just sent it to whoever his next of kin is, or if you don't know, return to sender 'not at this address'.

Had you done that, you'd not have been worrying about the contents.

All well and good but it doesn’t work. They just keep sending them and in the end they just ramp it up.
Santander do not give up easily..

Good luck op. If I was you I’d use the ombudsman’s I found them to be very helpful with a dispute I had with hsbc.

[MenuPlant]

You were right it's totally not my area but I did have some difficulty with something related a while back and I found it really odd that given probate and death and etc has so many laws and rules and registering and stuff, that there wasn't a register of deaths and who was executor it would make life so much easier and better for so many people. They could even charge a nominal fee to get a record I reckon it could be profitable for govt. And of course save all this time and stress for the op and time and money and solicitors fees for bank eg in this case.

OP I think they have behaved badly and their customer service has been terrible. 12 years of letters!

[YouWereRight]

I suppose registry office hold the records, like births and marriages, but to access that you would need to know where they had passed away. And it would only tell you the informant, not the next of kin.

[Fstar]

I would tell them over the phone and in writing that you are not the rep, have not applied for probate and do not hold the death certificate. Direct them to the governement site where if there is probate they can pay for a bloody copy themselves to see who the administrator of the estate is rather than bugging you. Also they can electronically check a death themselves so tell them to do this.

Unless the debt was joint or secured on joint property they cant expect you to pay a penny. Bullies, the lot of them.

Sorry you are going through this, disgusting! Also tell them you will go to the media

[edwinbear]

OP you asked me and VanGoghs not to post on this thread anymore on account of us both working for Santander. However, you seem so incredibly worried that I really feel the need to explain, once again, that this is simply a case of the bank having an old address for your ex. I occasionally get mail from the people who owned our house before us, 9 yrs ago. Some of those letters may well be from debt collectors but I have no idea, because I don’t open them as they are not addressed to me.

Santander are not harassing you - from what you have said they are not writing to you, they are writing to your ex at an incorrect address. This is not your problem.

[VanGoghsDog]

I think they meant to post on Santander's Facebook page, not your own. But many corporates do not enable open posting so you probably can't (I've never looked at Santander Facebook so don't know for sure how theirs is formatted).

Speak to CAB, it will put your mind at rest and tell you the same as many of us here have been telling you.

(As I said before, all the email addresses posted were for the corporate bank, and this is a retail bank issue, so really it will only delay things if you start emailing loads of random people. Head of the retail bank is Susan Allen)

[Acis]

Santander, or any company, cannot take your word for it that he passed away

But they obviously have accepted someone's word for it, otherwise they wouldn't be writing to the Personal Representatives of the Late Mr Ex-Boyfriend.

[OldAndWornOut]

What else can you give company other than your word when you haven't got a death certificate because you were estranged from that person?

[k1233]

You're not linked to him in any way. His debt is the problem if his estate, not you. If I were in your position, I'd print up a sheet or two of labels saying "not at this address since mm/dd/yy. Deceased. Date of death dd/mm/yy" and slap one on any mail that came for him and stick it in the post. Don't look at what it is and don't worry about it at all. It's not your problem.

[Oliversmumsarmy]

This sounds like Santander believed you when you told them you split 12 years ago and he is now dead so were not going to get any money from ex bf so have bundled this debt up with a load of other debts that would cost them more to chase than they would get back and sold them for something like 10p for every £1 of debt so they can get something back.

The company buying the debt now just have to get 10% of the amount of the total outstanding debt + their operating cost to break even. Anymore would be a bonus.

I would write one letter to this new company explaining your situation. Add in that you will be charging them if they continue to write and you have to redirect the mail back to them and I would also say that this fiasco has been going on for however long and continued letters will be viewed as harassment.