Barclays has been ordered to pay benefits landlord Mick Roberts compensation over a long-running saga which saw him wrongly given a bad credit rating.

Along with other Barclays customers, he fell foul of the bank’s Trinity computer system, which did not accurately record monthly loan repayments, flagged customers in arrears and marked down credit records shared with credit agencies. In Roberts’ case, he was unable to secure good low-rate fixed mortgages and is now on a variable rate on three of his mortgages.

The Financial Ombudsman upheld his complaints, while public records show it did so for similar complaints made by two other customers, according to the Financial Times.

In July it ruled Barclays should pay Roberts £1,300 and the difference between the current market rate and the one he would have been able to access had he not been flagged in arrears. This would come on top of £1,600 in compensation he had already received.

Nottingham-based Roberts was offered a mortgage rate of 1.49% in 2021 on three properties only to have a credit check fail. He’s now paying more than 9% and says he’s paying out thousands of pounds each month more than he should be.

Not convinced

While the ombudsman was investigating, Barclays put bad credit on his file 154 times, according to Roberts who is not convinced that the problem has been resolved.

“The words ‘missed payments’ are still on the file so it looks like I’ve missed payments and paid them off myself,” he tells LandlordZONE.

“Also, I still cannot get my certificate of interest for each mortgage, which means I could technically go to prison. Any landlords with buy-to-let mortgages with Barclays, please check your credit file and scrutinise your mortgage statements.”

The bank told the FT: “We take the responsibility of reporting accurate data of customers’ credit reference information extremely seriously and as soon as we are alerted to any inaccuracy, we work swiftly to resolve the situation.”

Pic credits: Google Streetview/Nottinghamshire Live.