Barclays, who have recently have discovered that the multinational bank had wrongly recorded defaults on their credit files, thereby trapping them on expensive deals for home loans and other borrowings.
According to the Guardian, several customers have found that the London-based financial service provider had repeatedly marked them down as having defaulted payments on their home loans, despite having paid them in full. There were also customers who had taken agreed payment holidays, which were also recorded as defaults on their files without reason or warning.
The extent and severity of the matter was brought to light over the recent weeks, as households across the European nation scramble to remortgage ahead of interest rate hikes anticipated by economists. According to one customer who lives in Clapham, south London, Barclays had placed a default on his buy-to-let mortgage, which has been admitted by the bank as an error. Although £300 (US$ 404) was paid to him as compensation, the lender had failed to remove the references, thereby preventing him from switching his home loan to a cheaper deal, costing him about £115 (US$ 155) a day.
“If it wasn’t so serious, Barclay’s response would be laughable,” he told the Guardian. “I have an offer of a new mortgage with another provider but it can’t go ahead until Barclays formally confirms it is an error. If it isn’t resolved soon I am going to have to get a lawyer involved.”
