Bradford & Bingley portray themselves as a warm, gentlemanly firm.
But before you take out a mortgage with them, check their history. We've researched the occasions they've been caught out abusing customers over the last few years. But for a real sense of how they view their customers, you should read the letters they send. We've got copies of threats Bradford & Bingley has made both to repossessees and to a customer who wasn't in any kind of financial trouble at all. They show:
the Bradford & Bingley cocking up a customer's court case with someone else after promising not to get involved - then charging her for the privilege.
We've got them demanding £35,000 from someone they've repossessed after selling his flat for £5,570 - and threatening to sue him if he makes them account for that sale price.
And we've got them threatening to sue a customer for months - before they let on that they don't have any records to back up their threat (and - presumably - their original claim against him). Note: there are so many letters in that case that we have only published the Bradford & Bingley's internal log of the correspondence (obtained using the Data Protection Act).
According to the Guardian, The Bradford & Bingley's letters drove one customer to suicide.
Elsewhere on this site other Bradford & Bingley customers set out their problems with the lender. Some name the Bradford & Bingley, others don't.
Faced with evidence from three customers, Bradford & Bingley's response was...
... to tell one journalist that they couldn't do anything about this site because it was "on the Internet". (Home Repossession Page note: We're as bound by libel law as any other publisher. If we state something as a fact, it has to be a fact. If we state an opinion, it has to be flagged as an opinion. That's why we back up our facts by publishing copies of Bradford & Bingley internal documents, such as this internal BBBS log of a shortfall claim and this BBBS log of a pursuit of a customer despite Bradford & Bingley having no documentation to support their claim.)
Nevertheless, the Bradford & Bingley does make sure that its own opinions of this site get circulated around the industry (and that means around the brokers that sell its mortgages to the public). For an example, click here to read what it told a reporter on a mortgage magazine about our publicising these cases.
Based on the complete sets of customer correspondence we have, plus the copies of partial correspondence we have with other customers, we would like to see Bradford & Bingley withdraw from the mortgage market altogether.
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