Credit card 1 late payment

Pavan

Hi everyone,
I had a natwest credit card since about 6 years, always paid off on time (minimum balance at least sometimes), past year or so i cleared all the balance and did not use the card, recently i received a letter from the bank asking me to use the card by a the month end of december 2010 to keep the account active or they would close it, hence i used the card for 400 pounds, but what i did not realize was that my direct debit which i initially set up with natwest bank (my current A/c) has been cancelled without my concern and the minimum payment for the credit card missed, i didnt know this till i received a letter from the bank, i paid off all the balance immediately and closed the account, when i checked my credit score it fell quite a bit, i had a spotless rating earlier, with 1 late payment showing now, is there anyway i can request the bank to undo this on my credit file. any Suggestions would be appreciated.

cgk1

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s there anyway i can request the bank to undo this on my credit file.

Sorry, I don't think so, because regardless of your intentions - it's an accurate record of what actually occurred.

bzd

Hi Pavan,

Almost exactly the same thing happened to me with a Nationwide Credit Card I rarely used and a Direct Debit set up with Bank of Scotland (HBOS).

In my case I hadn't used the Nationwide credit card for three years and then wanted to check I remembered the PIN so made a purchase expecting it to be paid in full a month or so later. When it wasn't and incurred fees (and a letter) I did what you did and re-paid in full over the phone, and confirmed that the Direct Debit details they had were correct but payment had been rejected by HBOS.

In situations like this I prefer to talk in person so I went into my Bank of Scotland branch and they couldn't even find any record of the Direct Debit (and their transactions didn't go back three years).

However, I still had HBOS statements from three years previously that showed the Direct Debit being paid in full (and the corresponding Nationwide statements) and took these in to prove the fact it existed. They later asked for copies of these statements so I posted them through their door with a letter.

The letter said that I was charging them £5 for each statement copy, and that I expected them to refund the £24 fees from Nationwide (payment rejected and late payment fees), £50 for my time in sorting out their error, and most importantly, I expected them to write a letter to Nationwide card services explaining that the missed payment was a bank error and that any note on my credit record should be removed.

A day or so later I got a call from the BoS branch explaining that a direct debit dormant for 15 months gets automatically deleted. However since no-one in the branch had known this they didn't expect me to know it, and to my surprise, they complied with all my requests (I even got a copy of the letter they sent to Nationwide)!

To be honest, if they'd made a fuss I would have switched banks, as there's been a slow degrading of terms and service since BoS merged with Halifax and I've been a bit annoyed with them over various things, but they redeemed themselves here.

I also closed the Nationwide Credit Card account after that.

If you want I can PM you a copy of the text in the letter. Be quick though -- I'm off on holiday at 4.30pm!

Hope you get a good outcome.

Ben

Hax

Pavan wrote: »

Hi everyone,
I had a natwest credit card since about 6 years, always paid off on time (minimum balance at least sometimes), past year or so i cleared all the balance and did not use the card, recently i received a letter from the bank asking me to use the card by a the month end of december 2010 to keep the account active or they would close it, hence i used the card for 400 pounds, but what i did not realize was that my direct debit which i initially set up with natwest bank (my current A/c) has been cancelled without my concern and the minimum payment for the credit card missed, i didnt know this till i received a letter from the bank, i paid off all the balance immediately and closed the account, when i checked my credit score it fell quite a bit, i had a spotless rating earlier, with 1 late payment showing now, is there anyway i can request the bank to undo this on my credit file. any Suggestions would be appreciated.

Your payment method will have been clearly stated on your statement. It would be your responsibility to check this.

Having said that, phone and ask - it can't do any harm. Be very apologetic, accept responsibility for what happened, point out it is the first time a payment has been late and that it was an oversight on your part. Also, ask them to reinstate the direct debit.

No guarantee that you'll get your way as it is, after all, an accurate history of how you manage your accounts. Good luck though!

bzd

Hax wrote: »

Your payment method will have been clearly stated on your statement. It would be your responsibility to check this.

The problem here is that the statement (in my case anyway) clearly /did/ say it would be paid off in full by DD. In fact the CC account even attempted to take the direct debit payment. The current account bank had cancelled the DD without informing me. This meant the attempted DD was declined and added an extra fee (which was refunded in the end).

Pavan, how have you got on?

oscarward

I've had exactly the same, Lloyds Bank Duo card with a DD to clear it from my Lloyds current account.

Used it last year in January and the balance was cleared in March by DD, then in February this year I used it and subsequently got a statemement. first since March. thought no more about it and got a letter saying missed payment.

Lloyds told they cancel DD's after 6 months with no activity and it should have been on my statement! Except if there is no activity there is no statement. They refunded the late payment charge and I've complained so someone was supposed to get back to me.

I've phoned again today to ask what happened to the call back and they are going to write to Experian and say it wasn't my fault I missed the payment and for it to be marked as such.

I suppose I'll have to do a credit check now to see what has actually been recorded......

Diaaaz

Try ringing natwest and ask them about removing it from the CRAs, be apologetic and explain that you had no way of knowing

chattychappy

DDs are all the rage on this forum. But I reckon they are more trouble than they are worth exactly because of situations like this.

Sorry to say I don't think you have way to get the late payment marker removed "as of right" because it just a statement of fact rather than an apportionment of blame or a judgement of intent.

BUT, it is clearly unfair if you were told on your statement that payment would be taken by DD when between them (CC and bank) they "should know" that generally the authorities end after a period of dormancy. They both agree to operate the scheme. So I would argue in writing - you relied on the representation on your statement that the money would be collected and at the same time the money was ready in the account to be collected. You gave an authority for it to be collected and didn't cancel the authority. You weren't told it would expire or had expired. So you had done everything you reasonable could to make the payment by a method they chose to make available to you. So it is unreasonable to suggest you were "late" with your payment simply because systems over which they have control did not collect it by virtue of a policy decision that you weren't privy to.

A slightly dodgy argument, but it's the best I can do!

Pavan wrote: »

when i checked my credit score it fell quite a bit, i had a spotless rating earlier, with 1 late payment showing now

Don't take these scores so seriously. They are just numbers from the CRAs that are given to nobody except you. One late payment is not a big issue and it will fade in significance over a few months. The reality is that plenty of "normal" people forget the odd payment.

Venusflytrap

I had a similar experience two years back: Paid for tickets with my CC, ticket fees returned upon my request so didn't make any payments during the statement period, assuming that the returned fee counted as a credit/payment. I was charged a £12 late payment fee. Luckily, as I watch my accounts like a hawk, I rang HSBC same day, explained my (misconstrued) thinking, also that I had never missed a payment before and will make a payment straight away. They were very cooperative (also because of my clean record) and refunded the late payment fee. They also didn't report the late payment on my credit report.

I think that the OP has a good shot at having this late payment taken off their credit report for the obvious reason that the bank didn't inform them that the DD had been cancelled due to account dormancy + OP's record with them is good. Also this information about DDs cancelled after a dormancy period doesn't appear to be readily advertised to customers (first time i've heard of it myself).