Sips and stones may break my bones...

Jesus, what a clusterfark of an organisation. How hard can it be? 

Wendy had a similar problem with Vodafone. She closed her account, and had it confirmed verbally because they refused to put it in writing. Two years later her VISA credit provider was behaving strangely so she checked her credit record and found Vodafone was claiming unpaid bills. After a long drawn out farce with Vodafone she took it to the Ombudsman and won compensation against Vodafone and her credit rating has finally gone back to where it should be. Wendy complained to the Ombudsman that these companies can affect your credit rating without having to tell you.

Yes, I've found literally hundreds of people mobile phone companies have done this to. In fact the guy at Buildloan said he has seen it lots of times and it is almost invariably telecoms companies for some reason.  I've had a go at Experian pointing out they have a duty of care to stop taking reports from companies they know have repeatedly sent them bogus  bad credit reports - but of course they don't care as these companies are paying a fee to them (Experian).

 

We are still going through the usual Buildloan delays where again nothing ever gets progressed until I phone or email asking why I've not heard anything for days/weeks. Every step has had to be forced. Its really unpleasant to be constantly arguing with people when all your asking is they do their very simple job. Basically, I send them a payslip/statement/form and all they have to do is put it in an envelope or scan it off to the building Society yet it will sit there until I ring and complain that nothing has happened. Usually until its out of date so I have to send another.  It took 6 calls even to get someone to answer the phone the other day. It's just completely stressful dealing with them - its horrible.  They've taken a system which can be a little stressful for people and made it hugely stressful at every turn. My heart sinks when i see i have an email from them as you know it will be some delaying tactic or asking for something they could have asked you for weeks ago, so is adding yet another delay.

 

Its almost as if they'd never done mortgages before and were just learning themselves at each step, yet they've done thousands as we know.  There appears to be no system.

 

The top and bottom of the problem is that they have a monopoly and know it so don't have any incentive to improve.  

Edited June 23, 2018 by curlewhouse

58 minutes ago, curlewhouse said:

Yes, I've found literally hundreds of people mobile phone companies have done this to. 

 

Yep, it happened to my hubby when he changed from T Mobile. They claimed he owed them £12 (which he didn't) and my hubby refused to pay time and time again in principle. Eventually the 'debt' was sold to a debt collection company that used to send threatening letters periodically that my hubby used to bin. Then about a year after he died I got a letter from them (addressed to him) saying that they would no longer be pursuing the debt. I imagine that it affected his credit score TBH but given that he wasn't looking to get credit etc we didn't pursue that but it really is shocking how these false charges can affect your life so dramatically with no recourse. 

Had exactly the same with AOL many years ago.  Notified them of my intention to quit the contract by the required number of days, by their preferred method and got email confirmation back from them.  As a matter of course I cancelled my direct debit.  A month or so later, a late payment demand from AOL who I was no longer contracted to.  Emailed them a copy of their acknowledgement and heard nothing more until a letter from a debt collector arrived!  A bit of research and sent them a holding letter saying I was in dispute with AOL (they cannot proceed with any action in those circumstances).  Two weeks later another letter from a different debt agency (presumably the 'debt' had been sold on.  Another holding letter and complaint to AOL who eventually acknowledged they were at fault and would cancel the outstanding debt.  No apology, nothing. Customer service at its best!

I’m wondering why you haven’t gone to your bank for the mortgage, when we built our first house 26 years ago our bank gave us the money in stages we even had a visit from their area manager to see how it was progressing which ended in him giving us enough carpet for our hall and lounge! Our second house was mostly funded by the sale of the first but nearing the end we ran out of funds and had to apply to the bank for a mortgage, they sent out a surveyor to put a value on what had been done and released enough money for us to finish, both times we had the mortgage within 10 days much easier dealing with them when they already know your financial situation.

Because they don't do self build mortgages any more unless via Buildstore. Quite a lot of the bank/building societies have now gone this route as it saves them having self build experts on their staff for probably less than 0.1% of their mortgage business.

Edited August 19, 2018 by curlewhouse