Guðrún Björgvinsdóttir says his relationship with Landsbankinn in recent years has not gone smoothly. She shared her amazing story with The bite on the wave during the week, but it was difficult for him to pay a debt that turned out to be non-existent.
Guðrún says that the story goes back to the years 2012/2013, but then she had problems following the collapse, like many people, and among other things she lost an apartment she owned. She believed that as a result, some settlement had been initiated with her bank and she was freed from debt.
In 2018, however, she received a collection letter from collection company Motus. There she was informed that a debt of 1.9 million was being collected by them.
Then she waited until April 2022 to receive a letter again saying that since Guðrún had not paid the debt and had not agreed to its payment, the company was going to take stricter collection action.
Guðrún noted that she was a disabled single mother and had no way to pay the debt, which in 2022 had reached almost 5 million.
“It weighed on me so much. Like I said – sleepless nights, worries about a lot of things not to mention it, it just added to that. I call Motus and ask them what I really have to do.”
Debts never canceled at Landsbankin
Guðrún explained over the phone that she was on disability due to an accident and had no leeway to negotiate the debt. There he was advised to approach Landsbankinn, who was the owner of the debt.
“A young man greets me there and I stand sobbing in front of him and ask what they are going to do.”
Guðrún had become desperate there. Due to the debt, she would still be blacklisted and therefore unable to receive any payment. She was a disabled person in rehabilitation and just wanted to know what the bank was going to do.
The young man promised to look into the matter, then contacted Guðrúna later that day and said nothing could be done to accommodate him. “It’s just your debt and you have to negotiate it.”
Guðrún then asked if there was really nothing to do, if it was not possible to cancel the debt or something like that. Then she got the answer: “Landsbankinn never writes off debts.”
However, Guðrún did not give up. She asked the branch manager to call her and she could not tell Guðrúna the amount of the debt. Guðrún thought it was strange. Shouldn’t the bank have this information in their systems? However, the branch manager could not help.
Tried to turn to politicians for help
However, Guðrún continued to fight. Among other things, she tried to get in touch with Bjarna Benediktsson, Minister of Finance by calling Valhöll. However, she did not succeed.
“I just wanted answers – what they.” [bankinn] would you like […] Billions had already been cut from society, why are you suing a mother of four in Grafarvogur who has nothing?”
Guðrún was blacklisted because of the debt and could not acquire anything without risking the bank taking action to enforce the debt. She was in social housing in debt and the situation is not good.
Guðrún again tried to curry favor with politicians. This time to a woman, whom she does not name, who was advertising for the elections last year. This woman answered Guðrúna and called her. She looked at the cases and noticed that there were a lot of strange things in this alleged debt that Guðrún was supposed to have.
The parliamentarian asked Guðrúna about the payment slips.
“Then I came completely from the mountain because I had not received a payment slip”
The parliamentarian also asked about tax returns from previous years, and upon reviewing them, it became clear that the debt had not appeared on a tax return since 2012.
“So everything was very remarkable”
I got the call that changed everything
Guðrún then had a meeting with another lawyer and he said there was a mistake going on here, and not an ordinary mistake, but a big one.
Guðrún then approached Landsbankinn again and asked for payment slips for this alleged debt. There she was informed that it was not possible to answer her by telephone about this and that she had to report to the agency. Guðrúna found this strange. It seemed even stranger to him that when he arrived at the agency, an employee had asked him for a delay in finding the payment slips.
In fact, it would have been a series of nonsense. The bank said the payment slips were obtained from the court debt collector, the court debt collector told them from Motus, and Motus told them from the bank.”
Then a few days passed, and then Guðrún received a call from the bank.
“Then Landsbankin calls, just before four o’clock, and says: Guðrún – now we have good news. The debt has been cancelled.”
Guðrún was speechless and thanked her for the good news. But then she started to think a little more about that and how weird it all was.
Many strange things happened during the day
She therefore decided to return to Landsbankinn to obtain confirmation that the debt had been cancelled. This trip took her an hour because the employees did not know how to prepare the confirmation, and the day came when the debt had been canceled in 2015, three years before she received the collection letter from Motus.
She then decided to take a look at the case history on her website at Motus, but everything about the debt was gone.
Additionally, she found emails from Motus from 2019 stating that the debt had expired. Nevertheless, she received a letter of formal notice in 2022. For a debt written off in 2015, due in 2019 and absent from a tax return since 2012.
Guðrún thought back to all her dealings with the bank and Motus, where it was told that she had this debt and had to pay it. No one in this long process has gone and just found out that the debt doesn’t exist. Guðrún wonders what the situation would have been if she had just paid the debt, if she had been in this situation, and wonders if she is the only one who has found herself in this situation.
She took her lawyer to a meeting at the bank and was nothing but scorned.
“They just say it’s a mistake unless my lawyer gets a meeting with Landsbankinn and then in the meeting they only speak arrogantly and disrespectfully and they, what can I say, were so interested in trying to humiliate a person rather than trying to get a man to come clean […]They just asked how many times do you want us to apologize? »
Guðrún is surprised that for years she has this alleged debt on her back and has been trying to get help, and all the while the bank employees have been staring at a blank screen in front of them, but no one said nothing.
“I am not unique, I know it”
Many questions remain and Guðrún says the case is not over on his end, although the bank does not want to discuss it further.
