Is it worth trying to explain this on my file?

joncrip

Morning all, hope you're having a good weekend.

I decided to check out my credit file from Equifax on Friday. My wife and I have decided to try and clear off our debts, and this seemed to be a good place to start! All seemed normal - 1 late payment in the last year due to a mix-up where I'd signed up to pay by direct debit, had the confirmation but the company didn't start it until the following month. Hey ho.
But then, at the bottom of the page I noticed something very odd against a previous address that we moved from 7 years ago. Six missed/late payments against a debt of £8 from Lloyds TSB. I used to have a business account with them, which had an overdraft. I got into a bit of bother with it just before we moved house, setup a payment scheme with them and paid off the debt. I assumed I had also closed the account at that point. We had moved house when I set up the payment scheme, so I'm sure they had our new address.
Anyway, I rang Lloyds to find out what this was about.
It turns out that when the debt reached less than £10, they stopped taking the payments but my account remained open. Over the next seven years interest slowly accrued to the point where I owed them the huge sum of £7.52. I wasn't aware of this and did nothing. Six months ago they decided that since my account was inactive, they would like the £7.52 back. They cancelled the overdraft, meaning that this debt started showing as late or missed payments.
The guy on the phone couldn't take a payment over the phone, so I raced into town after work and paid off the £7.52, (and closed my account).
Is there anything I can do to negate the effect of this on my credit file? We would love to apply for a new mortgage in the next 18 months, once we've paid off debts, and would hate for this to spoil an otherwise good record!:mad::mad:

GettinBetter

It just goes to show how jumpy society is about their credit references!!
"so I raced into town after work and paid off the £7.52 ".
Yet I wonder how long it will take them to update their records.
Credit Rating needs some serious control/code of conduct.

joncrip

Well I had been refused credit on a 0% card recently, and it's the first time in several years that I've been turned down. I did think that maybe it was just the amount of credit my wife and I have between us, and maybe it was, but now I wonder if it's this. So annoyed!

stator

Can you prove that they had your correct address but failed to send you a notification that they were withdrawing the overdraft? If so you have a good case to write to them and have the debt erased completely since it was never valid.

joncrip

stator wrote: »

Can you prove that they had your correct address but failed to send you a notification that they were withdrawing the overdraft? If so you have a good case to write to them and have the debt erased completely since it was never valid.

Good question. I'll have a look back through my paperwork. The problem is that the last dealings I had with them were at least six years ago, and since I thought it was paid off entirely, I don't know whether I will still have any correspondence from them.