help! i paid my credit card too early, and now it's too late!

charleyroo

hi everyone

i'll start by saying, this is completely my fault!
Secondly, i'm in the middle of buying a new house and any advice would be so appreciated as i'm ridiculously stressed over this.

i pay my credit cards manually every month as i hate money flying everywhere at various times of the month.

on payday, i made a sizeable (£1.5k+) payment to my Virgin MBNA card (early). My statement was released on the 3rd with just interest due (about £70) because I'd basically cleared my account. Payment was due on the 18th Feb.

Like an absolute tool, I was sat at home yesterday planning my financial life and had a horrible moment where I thought, "I can't remember the last time I logged onto my Virgin account"

I logged on and yep, I was overdue. No excuses, I can barely even bring myself to say 'but they didn't text/call me either!'... i would have thought they would have sent a text 5 days before or something, but anyway, it's my fault so I'm not going to argue this!

Anyway, it was past 5pm, so I IMMEDIATELY made a payment on my debit card of £75 and then realised that a Faster Payment would have been better so I made one of those too.

Have had several phone calls to Virgin because I'm obsessing, and getting completely contradictory advice, plus the payments still haven't shown as cleared which is doing my stress levels no good! But have been reassured they are in.

1. 'yes, MBNA report factual information to CRAs and yes you will be marked as a late payment'
2. 'No as the payment was less than 7 days late it's unlikely you will be marked as late payment'
3. 'No as the payment was less than 5? working days late , it's unlikely you will be marked as late payment'
4. 'No, as I've refunded your late payment fee you won't be marked as late because your credit rating is excellent'
5. 'No, nobody has refunded your late payment fee and you will be marked as late'
6. 'Yes it's been refunded but I can't really tell you, but probably.'

Does anyone know whether MBNA are lenient about this, ie whether they wait for non payment up to the next statement date before sending off to CRA, or whether they give a few days grace, or anything like this?

chattychappy

Being refunded a late payment fee doesn't mean you won't be marked. The two are separate. Of course if it was a CC error, then you are entitled to a refund and to have any marker removed.

CCs do tend to report the facts as they are and don't usually remove flags that were correctly reported. But my experience is that they don't make a report just because you are late. Rather there is a reporting date and on that date they report if the account is late. So if you missed a payment and then paid before the reporting date, the account will show as OK.

I'm guessing you might have got away with it - but checking your CRA report is the only way. If it has been reported there is probably nothing you can do about it.

charleyroo

thank you chattychappy, that's what i'm hoping. i'm all for accepting my responsibilities but on this one occasion i would really love them to be kind to me!

so i'm signed back up to experian now, and nervously waiting for the 9th which is my MBNA reporting date. i'll post back here when i know, for the benefit of anyone else, cos i can't find a neatly tied up conclusion on the boards anywhere

ybbon66

I had a problem with MBNA card when I switched bank accounts and the DD date was slightly off. Even though this card was/is in an arrangement, when I called and explained the problem (which was my fault too) they were pretty OK with it. No late fee showed on my CRA report. Obviously not everyone has the same experience but if you are only a few days late, and there was already a large payment there should be no issue.

sistafromanothermista

Same here with my Virgin card. My fault i thought the DD was in place for the start of my 0% offer. It wasn't. They refunded the late payment, re-instated the 0% and it didn't show with the CRA's.

Mulder00

I can only relate with a Tesco card, but basically you have some time before they actually report you to CRA's for being overdue. The way that they work, from my understanding is that on the date that they report to CRA's, they just check if they received payment for the month, whether it was late or not. If they received payment, it will go through as okay, if not, well, then obviously they can't make up stuff.

So it's just about whether they've received payment or not by the time they send of the data to CRA's (but from the conversation I had, if you made a payment on the 1st and your cycle runs until the 20th and you missed it, if you actually made a payment on the 1st, it will report that month as paid up).

That's Tesco, but I'm assuming all card companies work in a similar way...

Herbalus

With my first ever credit card with Natwest some 4 years ago, I set up a direct debit after the first statement was produced, and didn't realise that it wouldn't work for the first payment (a lesson quickly learned!). So when I checked on the day after the due date, and saw that no payment had been taken, I called them and paid manually over the phone from my student account with them.

That wasn't reported as a late payment to the CRAs, but rather as unconfirmed. I assume this is because it was a first statement, but still, I guess it would have been marked as a late payment if I had paid a lot later than the day after.

phona

charleyroo, don't beat yourself up about it - to err is human!

Like others have said, I too once paid my CC late... I got a letter telling me off about it, and promptly went online and paid it. I paid my late fee without calling them (I now realise I should have called and tried to sweet-talk them into refunding that!)
No late payment marker was recorded on my credit report. While it wasn't MBNA, the systems are probably similar.

For perspective anyway, one little late payment marker isn't going to do you any real harm. As long as you make and have made plenty of on-time payments your accounts will be healthy and, with time, the effect will fade away. Lenders do realise we're only human so please stop stressing!

charleyroo

thanks for the reassurances guys I appreciate it

I guess my main paranoia is that I'm due to exchange on the 7th and the marker won't appear (if at all of course) until the 9th which might put my in a very vulnerable position if the mortgage provider looks unsympathetically on it.

luckily I have a great supportive broker and I bank with my mortgage provider - and they seem to like me at the moment, I rang earlier about the faster payment and had to reassure them sternly that I didnt want a bloody 15k loan!

fingers crossed anyway, I certainly feel a bit more positive now as time is ticking on.
xx

jamesml

I know you said you didn't like money flying around, but you really should consider setting up a DD to cover the minimum payment. That way you are guaranteed not to be late, even if you end up paying interest.

exoteric

jamesml wrote: »

I know you said you didn't like money flying around, but you really should consider setting up a DD to cover the minimum payment. That way you are guaranteed not to be late, even if you end up paying interest.

^^ This. I have a DD set up for minimum payment which comes out just before the statement needs to be paid, but if you pay off more than the minimum in the same period the DD doesn't take anything. It's basically a safety net to make sure you never miss a payment.