My friend Jof Walters has just sent this to Lloyds TSB after months and months of frustration and general incompetence from Lloyds. He copied me in. It makes fun reading!

Dear Lloyds Credit Card Team,

Firstly, I hope this email is going to the right department. To the best of my knowledge you are the people ‘dealing with my account’.

Two years ago you set an account up in my name, without my consent. You don’t dispute this. You have also transacted on this account, by which I mean transferred balances to put the account into debt. This was also done without my consent. You also do not dispute this.

If I did this to another individual it would be considered a fraudulent action. We would call it “identity theft”.

I have always had three paths available to me to resolve this issue.

1) Follow the complaints process through yourselves and the Ombudsman.
2) Go to the regulator, the FSA to make a complaint
3) Take personal legal action

As options two and three have always seamed difficult and costly, I chose option (1).

Back on the 6th of May this year, after quite a long process, the banking Ombudsman made their final decision – which is binding on Lloyds TSB. The basis of this decision:

- £100 compensation for the mistake
- All fees, charges and interest re-funded
- My Credit record repaired
- 0% interest for the life of the balance
- The rest of the terms of the account would be as standard

I agreed to this.

The first communication I then received from lloyds was from your collections department. The debt it seamed was attracting your 15.9% interest rate and I was being asked to pay over a third of the balance immediately. Not only that but I was informed that the debt had been ‘sold’ to a debt collection agency (although I now understand that the agency in question ‘MHA’ is part of lloyds).

I called the ombudsman to ask why Lloyds were doing this as I thought that you were bound by the Ombudsman’s decision. I also asked for clarification on what I should be paying. 0% for the life of a balance is no real benefit if the balance is all due immediately. The Ombudsman’s office informed me that they would follow this up.

This week I received a letter from MHA saying that they would be appointing SC solicitors to chase the debt in court.

Soooo…

You are not bound by the Ombudsman and have chosen to ignore their decision. You have committed what appears to me to be an act of fraud. You do not hold a written agreement or record of an online application for the debt that you are chasing (no application was ever made – again you do not dispute this).

Please have ‘SC Solicitors’ contact me directly. I look forward to discussing this matter publicly in court. It will be fun.  

Got any similar complaints against your bank/insurance company? Let us know in the comments box below.