Barclaycard late payment scam

ldcb

I decided to be responsible financially and called Barclaycard in October to set up a monthly direct debit. Yes of course they could action this. A bit puzzled I received a statement in December that I owed them 2 months for late payment and they had applied a late payment charge. I called up their Indian call centre. This was after I visited my Barclays bank branch to a) find out why the direct debit was inactive b) to pay off the full amount. The bank told me a) the direct debit had not been submitted b) yes I had enough in my current account to pay off the amount. The response from Barclaycard is that since it takes up to 2 months to set up the direct debit they apply the charge. And they could not tell me if my credit rating was impacted or not. So having trusted another big brand (dont get me onto BT) I now have a credit rating probably reflecting a non-payment for 2 months as well as my monthly budget being screwed as I had assumed incorrectly that the debit had kicked in earlier. Barclaycard's person kindly refunded the late payment debit of £12 and when I pointed out it was Barclaycard's fault I was told that it should have been explained to me. Now I know I am really stupid as far as big companies are concerned. But if you feel like I do, how about we all terminate our relationships with these big brands, go back to cash, insist they accept payments in cash (after all it is legal tender) and see how they squeal?

ratoo

Did you check your Nov statement? I set up a DD with Barclaycard over the phone in Nov where they told me it would not be set up straight away, so the next payment I would have to do on my own. They also repeated it when sending me a copy of the Direct Debit guarantee telling that the DD would be in place when the "what and when to pay" of my statement confirmed the DD. Unless I'm missing something, I don't see much fault with Barclaycard in this instance. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Scousebird_2

May I suggest if you can prove the call (which should be logged and recorded for audit purposes by law), that you make a complaint and then it will be looked at, Then you can apply for a positive data correction, which is a note sent to the CRA's (Credit Reference Agencies) to have these missed payments removed from your credit file as you had made (or believed you had made) arrangements to pay each month. Worth a try at least.