Late payment..

jmmo20

Hi, so I have this Capital One credit card I don't actually use. I have a balance of zero. Actually I had a balance of -5 for a while, because I overpaid.

Last month I made a mistake on Amazon and purchased a book using the capital one credit card.

I normally check all my accounts at the beginning of each month to make sure I see no fraudulent activity. What I noticed was this charge from amazon, which was indeeed mine.

But the payment of £2.95 was late by 2 days!! it was due on the 4th and it's now 6th. There was on top of that a £12 late payment fee.
I immediately paid the £14.95

Is there ANYTHING at all I can do to avoid this being added to my credit history? I'm devastated by this fact. For only 3 bloody pounds and only 2 days late.

I don't want a mark in my history and especially not now that I'm planning to buy a house in the next year.

Thanks.

Tixy

Given the short timescale they may or may not record this as a late payment.
But worth phoning them and explaining your error and asking them if a late payment marker will be registered and if so ask if they will agree not to as a goodwill gesture.

jmmo20

Tixy wrote: »

Given the short timescale they may or may not record this as a late payment.
But worth phoning them and explaining your error and asking them if a late payment marker will be registered and if so ask if they will agree not to as a goodwill gesture.

do you think i'll have any leverage if I threaten to close my account?
to be honest i've had it with a -5 credit for 6 months I see no reason to keep it open. If they insist in adding the late payment mark I'll just ask them to close it altogether.
thanks for your reply

GingerBob_3

Unfortunately there's not a lot you can do about this. You could ask them to remove it, but the chances are they'll state that "they MUST report the truth to the CRAs". Liars; they can remove data if they so wish.

This just goes to show the absolute iniquity of the current credit referencing system, whereby an honest, trivial mistake can have repercussions for up to six years on your ability to get credit. The whole system stinks and is long past its sell by date.

Having said that, a single late payment probably won't have much of an effect. I've accumulated several over the years and they've never been held against me. However, in these days of tight mortgages, the supppliers are looking for any excuse not to do business with you.

GingerBob_3

jmmo20 wrote: »

do you think i'll have any leverage if I threaten to close my account?

I doubt it. In my experience if you threaten to close an account their reply is typically "no problem, should we close it now". They don't give a monkeys.

jmmo20

Well I just gave them a call and it went so much better than I had expected.

I tried to emphasise that I completely accepted the £12 late fee because it was actually my fault. Then I went onto saying how good of a customer I was, that I always paid in full and in a timely manner, etc etc.

Then the guy said that they actually had to notify the CRA and I replied "No, Capital One does NOT have to notify, you only notify if you want to and I find it beyond ridiculous that Capital One is willing to leave a mark on my credit history for up to 6 years based on the fact that I was late 2 days for the enormous amount of £3. This will in fact affect me greatly as I'm expecting to buy a house in the next year".

So the guy went quiet for a few seconds and said that he understood me completely and he was sympathetic and that actually if he waived the fee and returned the money to me the incident WOULD NOT be recorded by any CRA.

I hope he was telling the truth..!!

Thank you all for your answers.

Aquamania

jmmo20 wrote: »

Well I just gave them a call and it went so much better than I had expected.

I tried to emphasise that I completely accepted the £12 late fee because it was actually my fault. Then I went onto saying how good of a customer I was, that I always paid in full and in a timely manner, etc etc.

Then the guy said that they actually had to notify the CRA and I replied "No, Capital One does NOT have to notify, you only notify if you want to and I find it beyond ridiculous that Capital One is willing to leave a mark on my credit history for up to 6 years based on the fact that I was late 2 days for the enormous amount of £3. This will in fact affect me greatly as I'm expecting to buy a house in the next year".

So the guy went quiet for a few seconds and said that he understood me completely and he was sympathetic and that actually if he waived the fee and returned the money to me the incident WOULD NOT be recorded by any CRA.

I hope he was telling the truth..!!

Thank you all for your answers.

I wouldn't trust a word uttered by anyone at Capital 1 (Voice of experience )

They only are used to dealing with those with bad credit (their target market), and so are not too lenient. (I was with them in the past when they ventured for a short period into the more creditworthy market, but they failed miserably, and have now withdrawn from that target market)

You were late paying, so a late payment charge applies. They will not waive the charge, but may offer a goodwill gesture credit equal to the late payment charge.

They can report to the CRA any factual information about your account. You were late paying. It is unrelated to any charges incurred or goodwill payments credited.

But as Tixy says, given the short time frame, it would not be usual for a credit card company to report such an account as late ... but I wouldn't put anything past Capital 1.

Only way you can be sure is to check your credit reference files later.

giblet10

I wouldn't trust what the chap at Cap One said because he almost certainly won't be empowered to make such decisions himself.

But, you've said the right things and owned up - if it does appear on the CRA's just write to them outlining the situation and basically plea for leniency.

As another poster said, this is the terrible system we have in this country - you'd be forgiven a lot quicker than six years if you had nicked something from a shop!

jonesMUFCforever

OP why the panic - if this is the only transgression on your credit file then your mortgage (or any other credit application) should not be affected.
It shows you are human - it will also show that the balance was settled - my advice take a chill pill.