Barclaycard recourse

davebage

Hi all,

Need some advice on a SNAFU done by Barclaycard on my Experian credit report. Allow me to set the scene. I had a £13,000 limit on my card, carrying a balance of approx £12,700. Now, I took out a bank loan to clear all my cards off (2 others) and shut them down. The customer retention agent at Barclaycard convinced me to stay with a 0% deal for the next year (which doesn't really make any difference as my cards went into the shredder about a year ago, anyway, I digress. So I clear the balance on my Barclaycard and I ask the agent to reduce the credit limit to be something more sensible at £1,500.

Just two days ago I receive an alert from credit expert (Experian to the uninitiated) about a change on my report. When I take a look, to my shock I see that my Barclaycard limit has been reduced to £1,500 BUT that I am still reportedly showing a £12,700 balance which put my credit utilisation percentage at about 850% and killed my score!. I call Credit expert just to make sure that there hasn't been a mistake on their part as I was thinking that barclaycard had also told them I was carrying a zero balance too, nope, just that my limit was reduced.

So I make a complaint to Barclaycard through the secure message portal. To their credit I get a call back about 2 hours later (think the vein was popping out on my forehead at this point), the person attempted to explain that credit limits get reported alot faster than balances. So I challenged him by explaining that I cleared the balance first as I would not have been able to reduce the limit until I had done that. Now I have been informed that they submit their account records to Experian at the end of the month, and that I should allow 2 weeks for my report to be updated. IF by mid-August the report has not been rectified, what recourse is available to me?

Thanks all in advance
D

shortcrust

First off, is it really a problem? Are you going to be applying for credit between now and the middle of August? If not then there's no need to do anything. If you are wanting to apply for something, how about getting Barclaycard to put your credit limit back up until the reduced balance shows on your credit report.