Express Mortgages Express Loans Bingo Lose Weight Franchising Dating Shopping Book Shop Find Spare Parts Cut Your Bills Wine Shop Legal Store FlatShare

VICTORIA NEARLY CRACKED OVER EGG ERROR

The bank quickly came back with an apology

Monday April 21,2008

A COSY chat with her bank triggered a chain of woe for Victoria Prosser that became so bad, the blameless mum ended up fending off debt collectors.

Rectifying wrongly cancelled direct debits can be a time-consuming hassle, as consumers who have been caught out know so well.

The first glitch happened to Victoria’s account when she was having a financial review with HSBC. By accident it stopped her repayments to Egg for a loan that had a while to run.

Luckily Victoria, from Stourbridge in the West Midlands, spotted this quickly and contacted Egg so the direct debits could start again.

But then another gremlin scuppered this, too.

“I completed the fresh authorisation and sent it to Egg but it was never set up,” a distraught Victoria told Crusader. By that time, Egg’s automatic system had flagged up her non-payment.

“When I called I was told my file had been passed to debt collectors and they wanted £525 immediately,” Victoria continued.

“This seems to have run out of control so quickly, that’s what’s the most alarming.

"I have never sought to evade payment at any time but I’m the one in the dock and will have a mark on my credit record. Maybe it does seem hard to believe that two lots of direct debits went wrong but that’s the truth of it.”

Determined to end the jinx, Crusader put the sorry tale to Egg and the bank quickly came back with a big apology.

A spokesman said: “We’re very sorry for the poor service she has received. We were unable to contact her by phone and this resulted in the delay. When she got in touch with us we didn’t help her and instead referred it to a collection agency. For this we sincerely apologise. Egg has now recalled this and removed any adverse history from her credit reference file.”

Even better, Egg has waived the interest for the past three months on Victoria’s repayments and sent her some wine, too – gestures she finds most acceptable.

“I haven’t felt much like celebrating before this,” she said, “but I shall certainly have a glass or two now. Thank you everyone.”