Accidental purchase come to light

Serenboo

My partner logged into a credit card account yesterday that he bought was unused. It was kept as an emergency card after being cleared a while ago.

He discovered that he had accidentally used it to make an online purchase of £70 in July. Unfortunately he hadn't updated his mailing address with them when we moved three years ago. There were late payment fees and the balance was frozen. The balance due had risen to about £135 and min payment due for this month was £125. Partner called them (nationwide) today hoping to agree payment and see if he could salvage the damage this will have done to his credit score but was told no payment is due as the debt has been written off and the account closed.

He said again he wanted to pay and what could he do about credit rating and was told there's no balance now and they won't do anything about his credit file to rectify situation as the account is closed.

I know it was a small debt but they've written it off very promptly, is it likely to have been passed to a debt enforcement agency? How much damage will this have done to his credit rating in the long term, and should we do anything beyond efforts already made to sort it out?

[Deleted User]

They've either written it off or passed it to a collection agency.

Regarding the credit score - ignore it, since it's ficticious.

What matters is the credit files and the data contained therein - register with the 3 CRA's and see what they report - IGNORE THE SCORE!!

Serenboo

Isn't it bad practice to not say it's been passed to debt collection agency when he's asking about it? Thanks for replying.

lisyloo

Isn't it bad practice to not say it's been passed to debt collection agency when he's asking about it?

They said it's been written-off.

Written off means they've decided to forget about it and not collect it.
That's completely different to being sold and not what they said.

Get checking the credit records for free.

Serenboo

Great that's good to hear. I guess we were just concerned that they'd give up on it so quickly and thought it must have led to something more serious.

I'll tell partner to check credit records. Would something like this show on noddle? I've suggested he check there as I use it l.

lisyloo

Would something like this show on noddle?

Closed (settled) accounts stay on your credit report for 6 years.
It's possible that the company don't ue call credit (noddle) as they are the smallest of the 3 credit reference agencies.
That's why you are advised to get all 3 reports because not all credit providers use the same ones.

Serenboo

Signed up for checkmyfile and can see the card in question has three late payments against it for the past three months up to November. Not sure what other useful information we can gather from this website? Everything is as expected and historically he's been good at repaying his debts.

It has got me wondering if we need to wait a month to see if he again gets a comment saying late payment on this card next month even though been told today it had been closed and written off. We're not sure we trust what nationwide said on the phone, as he got the monthly statement from them 2 days ago which showed money owed and minimum payment due then called them today only to be told it had been written off. All seems a bit strange, one day he owes it next they say account closed. There's also nothing saying the account has been closed on checkmyfile, in fact it still shows his credit limit being active at £1500 yet online banking at nationwide does show it having been changed to £0 which perhaps indicates a closure.

lisyloo

I would call them again and ask WHEN it was closed.
Either you didn't get the right information first time OR they just closed it very recently. These reports take between 1 and 2 months to update so it's possible it's a recent change and isn't showing up but because this is potentially damaging to his otherwise good credit history, I personally think it's worth another phone call.
If 2 people told me the same thing I'd think it's probably correct.

Kim_13

There are three different credit reference agencies - some lenders don't report to all, so there may be differences between the agencies. You need to check all of them. There is a free for life service for each agency, see this article for details: https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/loans/check-free-credit-report#free

redpete

"How will it affect my credit score?" is useful shorthand for "How will it affect my chances of getting credit when I need it in the future?" and saying the score is fictitious and pointing them to credit records is not helpful. We can't know how a specific set of circumstances will affect a specific lender's view of the risk of lending you money but the credit score supplied by one of the credit rating agencies gives you an indication.