Problem over missed payment - how best to stop it hitting my credit record?

bluep

On 9th of December (in the evening) I made an internet payment to my Ikea card for £30 (on an o/s balance of around £190 with the min payment due of around £5). On the 12 of Jan, I got my December statement in the post (delivered just a bit late!!) and saw that the statement date was the 9th of Dec and they'd counted my Nov payment AND the payment I'd made on the 9th of Dec. This basically meant that for the next month, I was due to have paid at least £5 by the 4th of Jan which I hadn't paid. Sure enough my Jan statement (delivered on the 15th of Jan) showed an admin fee, which they've now agreed to waive and no payment for Jan.

Its just a bad series of events...that a) I did the transfer on the day they calculated the statement b) it went through the same day despite usually taking 2-4 days c) that the December statement didn't turn up over Christmas in time for me to make another transfer before the 4th of Jan...etc...

I've spoken to Ikea and they said to wait and see if an offical letter came with my next statement (which it has just done) saying they are obliged to report it to the credit score agencies. What's the best way to go about getting them to retract this?

Their statement says it will take up to 5 days to credit an account with a payment and I've not missed any other payments so I think I have a good basis to ask them to retract it especially as I paid the moment I realised what had happened.

I've also now set up a direct debit for the minimum payment so I won't get caught again in the same situation. At the moment its not hit my credit record (I looked at it online today) and we are about to apply for a remortgage in the next few days - so is it normal for these things to be reported on a monthly basis? If I can't prevent it from hitting my credit record, how much of an impact is it likely to have? We have a pretty good credit record - no missed payments, no returned cheques, no failed credit checks ever, enough debt to have a credit record but not too much debt for it to be negative.

TFD_2

bluep wrote: »

I've spoken to Ikea and they said to wait and see if an offical letter came with my next statement (which it has just done) saying they are obliged to report it to the credit score agencies. What's the best way to go about getting them to retract this?

Their statement says it will take up to 5 days to credit an account with a payment and I've not missed any other payments so I think I have a good basis to ask them to retract it especially as I paid the moment I realised what had happened.

I completely disagree. You paid late. For them to not report this to the credit agency would be misleading.

It is up to other lenders to decide whether one missed payment is an issue. If it is a one-off blip on an otherwise impeccable credit file then it shouldn't be a problem. Not sure why you feel you have any entitlement to have it withdrawn when you made a mistake?

gomer

I doubt just a single missed/late payment will have a devastating impact on your credit file & you could appeal to the CC company's better nature if you have an unblemished record with them, but i don't see why it should not be noted on your credit file - that's the risk we take unfortunately.