Why do relationships always cause debt?
In March of 2000, having recently gotten my first credit card (£500 limit), an overdraft (£500), and a joint account with my girlfriend of the time (another £500), all with Lloyds, we decided it’d be a good idea to buy a house together. Mortgage sorted courtesy of Halifax, and £5000 loan, again from Lloyds, to buy furniture and stuff, since it was our first home. All well and good, but basically we ended up maxing them all out. Split up 6 months later, by which time we had another £500 overdraft, this time with First Direct.

I called Lloyds and FD to arrange repayments for the joint accounts. Made the same arrangement with both - £50 a month til it was clear. Since it was November, FD told me to leave it and start paying in Jan or Feb, once chrimbo was out the way. Very nice of them. Lloyds wanted me to start paying immediately, not as nice but also fine. Less fine was the £55 charges they applied to the account for the privilege of removing the bar on the account, accepting my £50, and reapplying the bar. So after I’d paid them I was worse off than I started.

My response – I wrote them a later, telling them that I wouldn’t be making any further payments until I had an assurance from them that I wouldn’t incur further charges for doing so. They never wrote back, so I never paid them again. I still owe them a little over £6000, which they legally lose their right to chase me for in January of next year. They no longer have my address, but they still have my mobile number, and every so often they call me. I refuse to answer the data protection questions, which means they can’t get as far as bugging me about the debt.
(bblgoose, Sat 25 Nov 2006, 18:56, Reply)