Poor credit rating due to bank error - help!

GemmaDi

Hello all,

apologies in advance for the length of this post, but if you can get to the end of it I would really appreciate some advice

I had a credit card back in 2010/2011 and for some reason the bank cancelled my direct debit! They failed to inform me of this and as I result I incurred a number of charges and missed payments which are now listed on my credit file. I have had a number of credit cards/accounts etc. and this is the only one where payments have ever been missed, but I m now unable to get any further credit cards or even a mobile phone contract despite never missing payments on anything else.

I wrote to MBNA to ask them to investigate the matter but they have basically washed their hands of it. Here is a snippet of the email:

I have reviewed your statements prior to your account being closed on 19 May 2011 and your account was still be used for transactions at this time. Your February statement was closed on 14 February 2011 with a balance of £15.59 and requested a payment of this amount to be received by 4 March 2011. We did not receive a payment therefore a £12 late default sum was applied to your March 2011 statement. Due to further transactions being completed, your March 2011 statement was closed on 16 March 2011 with an outstanding balance of £151.72; it requested a payment of £40.59 to be received by 3 April 2011. We again did not receive the required payment therefore a further £12 late default sum was applied to your April 2011 statement. This statement was closed on 15 April 2011 with an outstanding balance of £165.51; it requested a payment of £65.59 to be received by 2 May 2011. We received a payment of £177.51 on 11 May 2011 which was after the payment due date. Therefore another £12 late default sum was applied to your May statement which was closed with a balance of £1.51; it requested a payment of this amount by 3 June 2011.
Again we did not receive this payment before the required due date, but we did not apply a late default sum to your June statement. As your outstanding balance was incurring interest, an interest charge of £0.02 was applied, which increased your balance to £1.53. Interest charges were correctly applied to all of the statements that I have referred to. Your June statement was closed on 15 June 2011 and requested a payment of the balance to be received by 4 July 2011. We received this full payment on 14 July which reduced your balance to £0.00; there was no further interest applied to your account.

Fair enough, HOWEVER, the ONLY letter I received from them was sent on 15th April after 2 missed payments. It had NO DATE for when the payment was to be received by, not 2nd May as they stated in the email.

I also had received no confirmation to say they had cancelled my DD back in February, so as far as I was concerned, minimum payments were being made as normal.

Also I closed the account over the phone, believing the balance had been paid off. As this was over two years ago I cannot remember what was said, however they must have admitted some kind of mistake at that point or at least agreed to pay the final balance, otherwise they would surely have charged me another £12 on the June statement?

Anyway, as I said this has really affected my ability to get any form of credit, despite having an otherwise perfect credit history.

Is there anything I can do to get this fixed? Is there a way to prove they cancelled the DD and didn't inform me of pretty much anything?!

Thanks in advance,

Gemma

pompeyred

It looks like you will have 4 missed payments ranging between 1 and 3 months old. If you have no other adverse information and regular on time payments since then this alone would seem somewhat strange.

Have you checked the CRA files....? Are you on the electoral role....? Have you a steady income and not moved homes or jobs many times...?

There are countless posts on here about people getting mobile phones with far worse, I fear there may be other relevant information which you may not know about.

Thrugelmir

GemmaDi wrote: »

Is there anything I can do to get this fixed? Is there a way to prove they cancelled the DD and didn't inform me of pretty much anything?!

So during the period in question. You neither read or checked any credit card statements sent to you nor looked at your bank statements at all.

Unfortunately not a position to argue the point from. Best to just move on. Chalk it up to experience.

The_Boss

Thrugelmir wrote: »

So during the period in question. You neither read or checked any credit card statements sent to you nor looked at your bank statements at all.

Unfortunately not a position to argue the point from. Best to just move on. Chalk it up to experience.

I don't get why people never look at statements etc yet claim it's "not my fault".

matttye

Thrugelmir wrote: »

So during the period in question. You neither read or checked any credit card statements sent to you nor looked at your bank statements at all.

Unfortunately not a position to argue the point from. Best to just move on. Chalk it up to experience.

The_Boss wrote: »

I don't get why people never look at statements etc yet claim it's "not my fault".

Not checking the statement doesn't override the fact that MBNA failed to collect the direct debits as agreed, assuming the OP is correct in their recollection of what happened.

I think the OP has a shout at getting the negative info removed and a 'goodwill gesture' payment

---

OP,

Write to your bank asking for a response in writing as to who cancelled the direct debit or, if it wasn't cancelled, that MBNA simply failed to collect it.

If MBNA failed to collect on an active direct debit, or they cancelled the direct debit, but they didn't notify you of this, then they're breaching the Direct Debit Guarantee:

"Direct Debit Guarantee

The Guarantee is offered by all banks and building societies that accept instructions to pay Direct Debits
If there are any changes to the amount, date or frequency of your Direct Debit the organisation will notify you (normally 10 working days) in advance of your account being debited or as otherwise agreed. If you request the organisation to collect a payment, confirmation of the amount and date will be given to you at the time of the request
If an error is made in the payment of your Direct Debit, by the organisation or your bank or building society, you are entitled to a full and immediate refund of the amount paid from your bank or building society
If you receive a refund you are not entitled to, you must pay it back when the organisation asks you to
You can cancel a Direct Debit at any time by simply contacting your bank or building society. Written confirmation may be required. Please also notify the organisation."

http://www.directdebit.co.uk/DIRECTDEBITEXPLAINED/Pages/DirectDebitGuarantee.aspx

If you can get this evidence in writing from your bank, send a copy of it to MBNA and ask them to explain themselves.

The_Boss

Have MBNA confirmed how the direct debit was stopped though?

matttye

The_Boss wrote: »

Have MBNA confirmed how the direct debit was stopped though?

Direct debits are usually cancelled by contacting your bank/building society, so the bank/BS needs to confirm how it was stopped - if it was stopped. It may be that MBNA simply failed to collect the payments.

GemmaDi

Thrugelmir wrote: »

So during the period in question. You neither read or checked any credit card statements sent to you nor looked at your bank statements at all.

Unfortunately not a position to argue the point from. Best to just move on. Chalk it up to experience.

I thought the card had been payed off in February therefore wasn't expecting to have to pay anything (the problems started with a balance of £1.51) and like I said, they didn't send me any statements!

GemmaDi

The_Boss wrote: »

Have MBNA confirmed how the direct debit was stopped though?

No, they have said they can't confirm if it was bank error?!