Credit card balance settlement

Creditidiot

Hi

I ran into trouble with my BOS credit card 2 years ago and they canceled it with an o/s balance of approx £2500. I continued to accrue interest on the balance and I began paying it off, often paying more than the min. I paid what I could afford, between £100 - £200 per month and the balance was reducing slowly but as I was still accruing interest it was quite slow. I never missed a payment during this time. Last year I borrowed from a friend and contacted the bank to pay it off in full. I asked if they would negotiate a settlement figure and they agreed to Reduce the total figure by £128. I paid the agreed amount and thought that was it.

I recently obtained my credit report and the credit card is showing as having defaulted for 6 months after i settled! for the amount they reduced the figure by. The bank canceled the debt as settled but it appears on my report that I missed 6 payments of £128 with the last missed payment as recently as March 2012 (I settled account in oct 2011). This has badly affected my credit rating and I wonder if anyone else has experienced this and if I have any recourse for the bank to amend this record. I would have paid the £128 at the time of settlement if I was aware that they would do this, however they didn't advise me of this.

I am trying to rebuild my credit rating, and I have been working hard for the last year to repay all my debts and am now debt free. I realise that it will still take some time to rebuild my credit rating but i expected my credit report to show that i have not defaulted on any payments for at least 2 years. Now as a result of this I am showing up as having defaulted in the last 6 months.

Any help or advice would be very welcome, thanks!

Tixy

Did you get anything in writing at the time to state that your payment of X would be accepted in full & final settlement of the debt?
Or did you get a letter/statement just after that showed a nil balance owed?

If you have you should have a good chance of getting the credit file corrected to remove the missed payments and shown as partially satisfied.

If you haven't then it may be harder to prove - but it would be worth writing to the credit card company, and asking them to correct your files (check each of your 3 file with the 3 credit ref agencies to see which show the account/error so you know which ones to ask them to correct)

Creditidiot

Thanks

No, unfortunatley dealt them on the phone and paid them straight away when they gave me the figure.

I will write to them as suggested and see how that goes.

Thanks