Would I have messed up my credit record? (Bank account switching fiasco)

Cloudane

I switched from HSBC to Alliance & Leicester and following some advice that said said along the lines of "in most cases you should do the Direct Debits yourself, but as A&L give you a free overdraft you might as well let them do it" I did so. One of the worst mistakes I've ever made, the whole thing has been an utter catastrophe.

The most worrying problems out of the tons that have plagued the transfer are:

- O2 direct debit bounced, they got in touch next day, and I paid it by card straight away.
- HSBC loan was a *huge* pain in the neck - finally the old DD was re-established but it was too late... it bounced yesterday. I paid it today by phoning them (for about the 6th time)

Neither said they would charge, but HSBC said there might be a late payment mark on my credit file (they didn't seem to know either way). For 1 day??

How much will this mess up my future applications for credit? I'll be staying away from credit but sometimes it's necessary e.g. car, mortgage. I really wanted to keep it clean but I have a bad feeling that even if I manage to pay everything off manually I'll end up with a handful of late payment marks.

Is a late payment mark the same thing as a "default" and going to sit on there for 6 years, BTW?

I can't believe HSBC would be so intolerant as to put a mark on my file for being 1 day late, and making huge amounts of effort trying to get it paid in the first place (rather than most situations where people just receive a letter and *then* worry about it). The only reason I was a day late in the first place is that one part of their system tried to move the loan direct debit to A&L and another part of their system said "no you're not allowed to do that" and just left the DD cancelled. I only knew about it because I've been keeping a close eye on the whole process and ringing alarm bells when I know something is due to go out on x day of the month and it doesn't.