This happen to anyone else?

[yahwob]

Hi,

I'm currently on a DMP with Barclaycard and have been for 8 months now with no problems, they take the agreed amount out of my bank by direct debit and I havn't missed a payment.

Over the last few days they have been trying to get in touch with me and unfortunately I havn't managed to answer any of their calls, they've rung me twice at home when I wasn't there and twice on my mobile when I'm driving home from work. When I try and ring them back I just get a recorded message saying they have tried to ring me and will ring me back later. Now they havn't been trying to hard too reach me, I mean one phone call a day and no follow ups but I thought I'd take the bull by the horns and I rang them this morning to see what it was all about.

The woman I spoke to was very nice but assured me that Barclaycard hadn't been trying to ring me at all and that they were perfectly happy with my exisiting plan etc etc. Now I know full well that I will probably get another call tonight but what I can't understand is why when I ring Barclaycard they deny all knowledge of ringing me, surely they must note their records etc. If it's an agent of theirs why are they ringing me in the first place if Barclaycard themselves are happy with my current DMP!

Just venting a bit here lol

[kallis3]

Unless they have passed it over to their debt collecting arm, Mercers, I don't know why they would be ringing either.

When we were in a DMP our creditors used to phone us every 6 months to see if anything had changed with our circumstances, and when told nothing had, they just continued on for another 6 months.

Don't know why they would deny it though. Let's hope you manage to catch one of the calls.

[Declan at DebtFreeDirect]

Hi there
I suspect there may be a number of reasons for this. Sometimes they have your details on a dialer and it will automatically call you at given times. Perhaps a different department with Barclaycard is trying to contact you and the customer service lady wasn’t aware of this? though they should have notes on your account.
I guess the only thing I can suggest is when they call next try and answer it and ascertain exactly why they are calling you.
This type of thing does tend to happen quite abit and is annoying.

Thanks

[yahwob]

Lol the plot thickens, didn't get any calls Wednesday or Thursday but this morning while driving to work my mobile rings, as I'm driving I can;t answer it so yet another missed call!

I ring the number when I get to work and someone picks it up and says "hello Mercers", I tell them someone has tried rining me and he says oh yes I can see Barclaycard tried to ring you I'll pass you through to them. So he does and a man from Barclaycard answers and promptly denies all knowledge of anyone from barclaycard trying to ring me! He said the account is running fine with no problems so why would anyone ring me? I told him I didn't know but somebody was but all he could say was the he had no record.

How can it be that someone is ringing me almost every day but nobody knows who it is!

All he could say was he would mark my file as being fine and that should stop the calls. It's really frustrating as they always ring at either 08.30 or 17.30 and either time I am driving to or from work so I can't answer and when I don ring back everyonedenies all knowledge!

[Michael Peoples]

It does seem a bit strange but hopefully the calls will now stop. If not I would pull over the nest time the phone rings and take the call. As the others say it probably something on the system that says you are due for a review and it automatically dials. Only a guess though.

[kallis3]

I agree - if your DMP is running ok, then it could just be a case of left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing.

Perhaps invest in a cheap bluetooth headset so you can take a call when you are driving.

Otherwise, write to Barclays and ask them what the hell they are playing at.

[yahwob]

Well finally managed to answer one of the calls because despite Barclaycard telling me everything was fine and they would put a stop to the calls they were still ringing me every day even though they denied it!

Anyway this very nice man rang, told me he was from Barclaycard and he basically wanted to review my DMP. Although he was very nice and didn't put any pressure on me the gist of it was to keep me on the DMP and the reduced interest it would be great if I could increase my monthly payment! He made it clear that it didn't matter how much, as long as it was an increase, in the end I agreed to increase it from £84 a month to £95 which he was happy with.

I guess £11 a month extra isn't the end of the world and as he said it will make the debt go down quicker, very marginally but thats ok.

Anyway happier now that I've got to the bottom of it now and also got them off my backs till the next review on 6 months

[kallis3]

Are Barclays your only creditor yahwob? I can't remember. If so, and you can afford the extra payments, then fine. If not, you need to increase payments to your other creditors as well.

[yahwob]

No, I have 2 other creditors, to be honest though although £11 a month is doable, £33 a month extra is pushing it a bit.

[kallis3]

If you are in a DMP with all three, then you should be paying them pro rata. Paying one extra could be seeing as preferring one creditor over another and the others may not like it.

[waits]

I too have had harrassment and constant bullying from Mercers. My thoughts are is that if we all get together with a big enough petition we may be able to force govenment to make it law that these greedy organisations who profit from others misery are formed as NOT FOR PROFIT. By doing so, all excess monies extracted from those in financial hardship would have to go to cahrity o community projects instead of the greedy directors wallets. The following link will take you to a blog which has a tab 'Debt Collectors'. Join the site and add your comments-brief. the more people we get to join the petition the better chance we have of stopping these greedy, anonymous bullies. *link deleted.* I have also place a petition at the following site

*Sorry John but you are not allowed to post links to external blogs. I have also deleted the other link until it is officially on the No.10 website*

[kallis3]

Whilst I can totally understand where you are coming from John as I have been prey to these people, I doubt you will ever stop them. After all, we do owe them the money.

They just need a bit of training so they don't bully people.