Urgent advice needed. Barclays terminated my overdraft account.

[TheCatMessedUp]

I have messed up.

I have worked very hard over the last 3 years (longer but last 3 years with a vengeance) to sort my credit out.

I have done it. Almost. I have paid off almost all my credit cards, I have a small affordable balance, and two more payments on a loan.

This has taken time, effort and tight finances.

The one outstanding debt I need to pay is £2900 overdraft with Barclays, an old account lingering from my student days, not been used for 3 years apart from payments. This was going to be next, in November when the last loan payment I have to make has been made, and this money will go onto Barclays. My credit rating is very good, for the first time in years. My mortgage company are even prepared to lend on a bigger mortgage! (although I am not going there right now, in reality we can't afford it, although on paper it looks that way).

In the meantime I have been paying them £100 every now and then, just to keep them ticking over, to keep within my overdraft. Every now and then I get a red letter and then I pay to bring it in line. I was so close to getting this sorted.

I recieved a red letter and forgot about it, to be honest. Its been a whirlwind of a month what with MIIL coming to visit. Anyway, no excuse.

So I get a letter saying I need to bring the account back in order within 4 days. They have asked for debit card back, fine, restricted use of account, fine. I don't use it.

I made a payment on saturday of £250, by credit card (cash transfer) 4 days late (so it took me 8 days to pay, not 4).

They have terminated the account and now want full payment. I asked the man on the phone if I could have it re-instated, and a direct debit set up to pay it off, and he said no.

He was very abrupt and quite intimidating, left me shaking, he asked me what I would be doing. He said, so, you cant pay it off in 14 days, what are you going to do about it then? How do you intend to resolve this.

I said I had made a £250 payment, and I could probably afford £60 a month. He said they would be very unlikely to help me then, but there was a vague chance they could give me a loan at high interest, a 'transfer loan' but if I could only pay £60 a month then they probably can't do it.

He said, in order to even consider this, they need a financial statement from me, my income, m husbands income, debts I owe and to who, expenditure, and they will see.

I feel so degraded. I have managed to clear thousands of pounds of debt that has hung over me without feeling this humiliated and useless.

What on earth am I going to do? How am I going to be able to pay back a debt of now £3090? My credit rating is going to be shot and I worked so hard, it has been painstaking to get this far and I was so close.

Is this the only option?

Bump, just so it does not go off active cons.

I feel so stupid, DH is going to kill me. I am going to have to put in on a credit card aren't I?

Any chance you can apply for a 0% card with your current bank to transfer the debt to? Or if you have any credit available on other cards maybe transfer it there for now while you shop around for a better deal?

Shop around for loans before you accept the Barclays high interest loan - you might be able to get a better rate elsewhere.

Also try these guys here for some free advice.

I would also look into a balance transfer to a credit card then set up a regular payment so it gets paid off.

On the other hand I've found when talking to banks that the response varies hugely depending on who you get on the end of the phone. You could try ringing again and talking to someone else.

Sam thank you.

Can I just ask if there is any way I can get the overdraft re-instated, as it is, seeing as I only missed the payments by 4 days? Thats a long shot isnt it?

Also I would go into your branch to see a human being and talk over your options - remind them you are a customer and you can take your debt (and the interest due on it) elsewhere - they are not the only option!!! They can be nice and make some profits from you - or they can be nasty and some other bank will get the profit!

jimjamhaslefttheyurt do you think so? Maybe I will do that again when I have calmed down a bit, thank you.

Sam - thing is, he said to me that I should borrow money from family or use a credit card to pay it off, he said that as I have not used the card for 3 years, there was nothing they could do other than this loan.

If your credit rating is otherwise good, then a low interest loan or 0% credit card is the way to go.

Overdrafts are repayable on demand unfortunately - so the bank can do this.

What I am puzzled at though, is that if you have a record of missed payments etc on your overdraft account, this would normally show up on your credit record.

Have you checked your rating with experian or the like to see if it is as good as you think it is? It is worth finding out, because it will give you some indication of what your best options are in terms of paying off the overdraft. I believe the credit ref agencies often do free trials so you can see what info they are holding on you without paying.

I don't know if you will be able to get the overdraft re-instated I am not a bank person. But i think if you were you would need to see a branch person to do it rather than just a telephone customer adviser.

I think your position will also be affected by whether you have other accounts with this bank - or if all your other banking is elsewhere. Martin Lewis has some good info about banks here

Best thing is to tackle this as soon as you can - get an appointment with your Barclays branch - but before you go in have some idea of your other options - talk to other banks and see what loan you can get. £3000 should be do-able and probably not an amount worth extending your mortgage for due to fees etc in setting up the mortgage. If you have a repayment mortgage is there any chance you can draw down some of the repaid amount and pay off this debt. It might be worth talking to your mortgage company to ask as this is probably the cheapest rate of interest you can get.

soapbox - I have my credit report and I check it monthly, or whenever I want to, barclays state £0. and that it is not used. I want to keep it that way. My credit rating ic currently at 889 out of 1000, which I believe is good.

You know, I think you are right jimjamhaslefttheyurt I am going to get a 0% credit card. I have been thinking about this, and I am paying £40 a month interest!

Dh will go spare, but oh well, one step forward and all that.

oh and soapbox you said 0% credit card too!

If that's the case then get that credit card application in straight away, just in case Barclays write anything on your overdrawn account!

Have a look at Motley Fool to see what 0% deals there are around at teh moment!

Barclays said they have put a 'freeze' on any further action until the money I paid clears, until end of this week.

How about I get a 0% interest card from Barclays?

Message withdrawn

sunny I was not being entirely serious there! .

OK, phew. I now feel calm.

This is what I am doing.

1. transferring the total amount onto my empty virgin card. It is a 'cash transfer' as they wont do a balance transfer from a bank account.

1. I have opened a Tesco 14 month 0% interest credit card, which has been accepted and will then transfer the money from Virgin Credit Card to Tesco. I can't transfer straight to Tesco as it is a bank acount, they don't do overdraft transfers.

1. I will make minimum payment until November, at which time I can pay £200 per month onto it. So I should have cleared most of it by the time the 0% has ended. I will then either transfer, or hopefully then be able to just clear the lot in full if there are no 0% balance transfers available anymore.

I guess, really, this was a long time coming, and it has just sorted my finances out better. I had just been avoiding sorting Barclays out until I had everything else in order, and in actual fact this is saving me money.

Thanks for helping.

Message withdrawn

Glad to see you're finding a way forward. It does underline the fact that, particularly when things are tight, the one thing you mustn't do with a red letter is ignore it.

This is from 2008! How come it's in active convos?

That's annoying. Went to all the trouble to find the link only to find this thread is out of date.

For anyone else in money trouble try this link for info on every aspect of money.

Moneyexpert.com

The same thing happened to me and although not the best way they sold my debt to a debt collector and i pay an affordable amount monthly, a low interest credit card would be better.