Credit file entry - advice please

superhoop

Hi all:

I need some help.

I have a generally good credit record although have been doing quite a bit of stoozing over the last 18 months.

I have been turned down for a couple of cards recently (Amazon and Virgin). I'm quite happy to accept that this is because I have been overdoing the stoozing, but an additional factor could also be because I made a late payment to my Barclaycard back in the summer due to a bank error caused by my friends at First Direct.

FD apologised and compensated me for it. I recently took out my Experian file and found the late payment marked on my Barclaycard record.

I'd like to get this removed since strictly speaking it wasn't my fault. Can anyone advise on how to tackle this?

The Barclaycard call centre people are being particularly unhelpful saying that whoever's fault it was, a late payment was made. They told me to write in, but they couldn't say how successful it would be.

First Direct are more apologetic given it was their fault in the first place, although stress that it needs to be Barclaycard or I that approaches the agencies on this. They have offered to write letters or make contact with Barclaycard to put this right.

Any help gratefully received.

Steve

Niteflyer

First Direct cannot get it removed for you, it will need to come from Barclaycard and as it was NOT Barclaycard's fault, you will have trouble getting them to remove it. As far as they are concerned they were paid late by you, regardless of whoever's fault it is.

You should write in, you may also have some luck by asking First direct to write you a letter taking blame. Barclaycard will assess the situation and MAY remove it from your file. If they don't, make a complaint to the Ombudsman.

What you should do in the meantime is put a notice of correction on your credit file, explaining what has happened, if there a a notice of correction on your file, anyone searching your credit file is obliged to read it. You can remove this notice as soon as you get it sorted.

Hope this helps.

Matt

superhoop

Thanks Niteflyer - that is useful.

Much as I suspected - I can see Barclaycard's point of view. A late payment is a late payment.

I will try as you have suggested. One further question though - which Ombudsman?

Many thanks again

Steve

YorkshireBoy

Experian's "Your credit report explained" booklet has some useful advice for dealing with issues such as this.

You usually get a copy with your £2 statutory credit report, but if you don't have one you can download a copy from here...

http://www.experian.co.uk/consumer/index.html

CTT_2

superhoop wrote:

Hi all:


I'd like to get this removed since strictly speaking it wasn't my fault. Can anyone advise on how to tackle this?

The Barclaycard call centre people are being particularly unhelpful saying that whoever's fault it was, a late payment was made. They told me to write in, but they couldn't say how successful it would be.


Any help gratefully received.

Steve

I'm sure in your eyes Barclaycard were unhelpful because they would not agree to your request. ALso whose ever fault it was the payment was still received late. I would have thought the best thing to do is get FD to write to Barclaycard with an explanation.

superhoop

CTT wrote:

I'm sure in your eyes Barclaycard were unhelpful because they would not agree to your request. ALso whose ever fault it was the payment was still received late. I would have thought the best thing to do is get FD to write to Barclaycard with an explanation.

Thanks for the reply. I see what you mean. I meant that the call centre assistant was particularly unhelpful to the point of being obstructive. No - they couldn't outline the best process for me to follow and no - they couldn't tell me the name of the best department at Barclaycard to contact.

Thanks for the suggestion CTT.

Steve

M_Thomson

superhoop wrote:

Thanks Niteflyer - that is useful.

Much as I suspected - I can see Barclaycard's point of view. A late payment is a late payment.

I will try as you have suggested. One further question though - which Ombudsman?

Many thanks again

Steve

There is a financial ombudsman which deals with Banks and building societies. A lot of people on here seem to think that you can go to the ombudsman straight away when you have a banking complaint, but this is not the case. You have to exhaust all the complaints procedures with the bank you have a complaint against before the ombudsman will consider getting involved.

Reaper

If you only have a single late payment on your credit history it is not going to have any effect on your credit score. All lenders accept that mistakes are sometimes made, only multiple missed payments will set the alarm bells ringing as a possible sign of somebody unable/unwilling to pay their debts.

I really don't think it is worth the effort, and I would not recommend a Notice of Correction over it. That will achieve nothing except to slow down future applications.

Much more likely your rejects are due to over-stoozing.

Niteflyer

Reaper wrote:

If you only have a single late payment on your credit history it is not going to have any effect on your credit score. All lenders accept that mistakes are sometimes made, only multiple missed payments will set the alarm bells ringing as a possible sign of somebody unable/unwilling to pay their debts.

I really don't think it is worth the effort, and I would not recommend a Notice of Correction over it. That will achieve nothing except to slow down future applications.

Much more likely your rejects are due to over-stoozing.

Reaper,
I understand what you are saying but the advice I gave came straight from Equifax, when it happened to me as I WAS being declined due to a SINGLE late payment of £52 to O2 (that was Natwests fault). I put the notice of correction on and far from slowing things down, I was immediately accepted for an IF card, when I had been declined for Marbles and Barclaycard.

Even when I added the NOC, I called barclaycard, asked to reconsider and they did, I got a card.

So, maybe different situations warrant different actions?

Matt

Reaper

I must say I'm surprised that it made a difference. What can happen is if you had other previous missed payments then one more could have pushed you over the threshold.

However generally a single missed payment is not going to make much difference unless it is not paid off the following month. The wording on Equifax's web site is vague but seems to support this. Regarding late payments:

particularly how late the payments were, how much was owed, and how recently and frequently it occurred

However I agree there are no absolutes. The UK system is shrouded in secrecy while it seems to be a bit more open in the US. After doing a bit of searching I found this page which claims a single missed payment can knock as much as 50 - 100 points off a score (where 850 is the maximum). So although I'm still not convinced I accept it could make a difference.