Cahoot / Santander

[pbarker]

I finished my IVA in June 2012. Got my completion certificate from PayPlan.

Last year everything came off my credit history and I got a credit card, moved to a better bank and have been slowly building my credit rating since. Everything going well and finally looking like I might be able to get a mortgage.

Then today credit expert and experian both email me with alerts saying Cahoot have filed a default against me.

Looking at it they have said I have failed to make payments since the IVA completed and have now defaulted my account owing them £700+

I phoned them and they said that although I did complete my IVA and they have the completion on their systems - I broke the terms by continuing to use my account up to 2010.

This is a complete lie - I moved from them in 2007 when I started my IVA, and as instructed cut up all my bank cards and have never used them since.

Where do I stand now?
Doing a quick search I can see Cahoot/Santander have done this to a lot of IVA people stating they didn't pay their overdraft or some other nonsense reason.

Pretty upset as my credit rating was pretty high and I was about to start applying for mortgages this year and now I have a default apparently this year and my rating has halfed

[MelanieGiles]

You should again request that these erroneous entries be removed from your credit file, or else you will have no alternative but to report this to the Financial Ombudsman. Ought to do the trick!

[pbarker]

Did some searching and found a letter template - going to give them 28 days to remove the entries or report to Financial Ombudsman.

Such a pain.

They said someone would ring me back within a few hours to explain why they think my account wasn't fulfilled by my IVA - 3 days later no phone call.

[MelanieGiles]

Be persistent with this pbarker - as this will help to demonstrate their lack of "Treating the Customer Fairly" if you do have to refer the matter to FOS in due course.