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Out of the blue, I recently received a letter from Nationwide, informing me that I had been one month in arrears since a missed payment in January 2014, asking for payment.
I was mortified - I've had a mortgage with Derbyshire Building Society for many years, never missed a payment however hard the times, and they were a great company to deal with, without a single problem - until they merged with Nationwide BS.
After an afternoon of digging out bank and mortgage records, I knew for a fact that I wasn't in arrears.
What had happened was that I made my usual payment to Derbyshire BS on 28th December 2013. On 9th January 2014 I received a letter from Nationwide giving their bank details and instructing me to change payment to them instead of Derbyshire and to set it for 1st of each month. I did this, commencing 1st February 2014. Heard nothing else from them till over a year later when I got the arrears letter.
I wrote a very indignant letter, showing them my payment record and stating that I believed it was an accounting error due to the fact that technically no payment was showing in January, but that I wasn't in arrears as I'd paid on 28th December and 1st February, and 1st of each month thereafter.
I've just received a letter back, with a 2 page apology as I was correct. Their systems expect payment within each month so flagged up arrears.
They gave me the option of paying a month's mortgage and keeping the same payment date, or bringing the next payment forward from 1st August to 26th July in order to keep their systems happy. Guess which I chose?
They also sent me a cheque for £50 for the distress caused. I think that's a good result.
I'm just posting this in case anyone else has been caught out by the system during the change over. A simple human check could have prevented the nasty letter and all the hassle this caused me.
Elsa x
I was mortified - I've had a mortgage with Derbyshire Building Society for many years, never missed a payment however hard the times, and they were a great company to deal with, without a single problem - until they merged with Nationwide BS.
After an afternoon of digging out bank and mortgage records, I knew for a fact that I wasn't in arrears.
What had happened was that I made my usual payment to Derbyshire BS on 28th December 2013. On 9th January 2014 I received a letter from Nationwide giving their bank details and instructing me to change payment to them instead of Derbyshire and to set it for 1st of each month. I did this, commencing 1st February 2014. Heard nothing else from them till over a year later when I got the arrears letter.
I wrote a very indignant letter, showing them my payment record and stating that I believed it was an accounting error due to the fact that technically no payment was showing in January, but that I wasn't in arrears as I'd paid on 28th December and 1st February, and 1st of each month thereafter.
I've just received a letter back, with a 2 page apology as I was correct. Their systems expect payment within each month so flagged up arrears.
They gave me the option of paying a month's mortgage and keeping the same payment date, or bringing the next payment forward from 1st August to 26th July in order to keep their systems happy. Guess which I chose?
They also sent me a cheque for £50 for the distress caused. I think that's a good result.
I'm just posting this in case anyone else has been caught out by the system during the change over. A simple human check could have prevented the nasty letter and all the hassle this caused me.
Elsa x
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