Barclays mistake has affected my credit rating!! Please help :(

Louise_G

Hi all.

I am new here, but thought this might be a good place to seek advice and support. My pay date recently moved from the 15th of the month to the last day of the month. I went into Barclays to see a personal advisor and she, I thought, successfully changed the date of my loan from 27th to the 1st. 4-5 days difference.

Not long after the 27th I received a letter to say I had missed a loan payment and needed to call immediately or my credit rating could be affected. I rang straight away and it turns out that the advisor had only changed my standing order date, not the loan date! I had to make the payment over the phone and pay the extra interest I had accrued in the few days it was late!!

I asked if it was going to be put on my credit rating and was told 'we update our system once a month so if it's been updated in the last few days then yes. I then paid £14.99 to sign back up to credit expert and it seemed fine....

Just checked again now and there is a late payment on there, dated the 9th, after the date I'd paid it, so now their second member of staff has messed up! I have gone from a score of 839, green, excellent credit to barely being in amber!! I am so worried as I was about to apply for a credit card and now I don't know what to do!!

Please help. How do I get this off my file, and fast. I could cry. This is all down to Barclays incompetent staff! I'm so upset

Thanks for any responses in advance.

DevCoder

1. Stop paying for your credit score they are worthless, Credit expert dont offer loans.
2. When you change the loan date you normally pay two months (full one month and then remainder period) in one go if the date is advanced, you still owed the original amount even though the date got extended.
3. Lenders have their own internal scoring so see 1.
4. See 1 again

Louise_G

Thanks for your reply but it hasn't made me feel any better or answered my question

mildredalien

You can raise a query (or dispute I think they call it?) on your credit report, although your best bet is probably to write a formal complaint to Barclay's and ask them to remove the late payment mark.

flyinggiraffe_2

How much notice did you give the bank about moving the date? The bank may not have been able to implement the change in time for this month, iykwim. Although if this was the case the person in branch should have told you this.

I'd say the same as the previous poster and write a formal letter to your bank asking for it to be removed. Put down all the facts as you have here including dates you saw the advisor and when you phoned up so that they can see that you did explain the circumstances in advance. I think there are some threads on here with sample letters that you could lose but I'm not very good with the "search" function.

As a poster above has said though, one small mark on your report like this will normally be overlooked by lenders as its clear it's not an ongoing issue. If you apply for a card with your own bank too they usually are more lenient as they will be able to see your previous financial history with them is good, barring this error.

Louise_G

Thanks.

Im not just worried about this credit application to be honest. It's the fact that I've never defaulted in my life, and now due to someone not doing their job properly my rating has come right down, I was shocked!!

I am reluctant to go with Barclays credit card now after this, also they refused to extend my overdraft temporarily last year but then sent me a platinum credit card the next day!!

I've never had a credit card in my life, but just need a small amount to help with Christmas and it will be repaid the month after with the money I'll save on child are over Christmas!

I went into branch twice, the first time she told me to come back as it was too early to change date, so it was definitely not too close, she actually thought she'd changed it.

Thanks again.

DevCoder

My point still stands, stop wasting your money on credit scores, put that money to good use. Their rating is useless, it's not used by lenders, they have their own scoring mechanism.

And moving a loan payment date forwards normally entails paying the full month plus the extra days, then it settles into the normal routine.

Some lenders don't allow moving the date because it just complicates the whole thing and requires the recalculations you are seeing.

Louise_G

Barclays do allow you to move the date, and the payment was set up to cover the extra few days, she just didn't do it properly.