my credit card balance has disappeared

newbie_user

So i’ve had a weird morning. I have a credit card with Halifax which has approx £2500 on. The zero percent deal is about to expire, so I applied for a Sainsbury’s Bank credit card to do a balance transfer. However, I got rejected (we figured out i hadn’t updated my address on my credit file, so it wouldn’t have matched my application). I am able to appeal the decision - but in the meantime, when I went to check my existing Halifax balance…. it was zero! It’s been cleared completely! I assumed the new Sainsbury's credit card/ balance transfer maybe hadn’t been rejected, and it had been paid off that way - so I called Halifax to see who or what had made the payment. A very helpful lady told me there were literally no details as to who or what has cleared it - normally a balance transfer would be listed on file, as would a payment. It's like it never existed in the first place. She said the only think I could do was ring Sainsburys - and they were no hep either! The man said - there’s no record of an account, or a credit card, or a payment, or anything - he literally said ‘treat it as a christmas miracle…!’ So I'm not going to appeal the decision after all, as at the moment I owe no one anything officially.

However, my fear is I owe this money to someone, but since I don’t know who, I can’t pay and don’t want to be racking up missed payment charges. Ever heard of anything like this?! Literally both banks were saying ‘put your head down and be grateful !’ Also, as an honest person I really do not feel comfortable with this (though appreciate many people, including the two I spoke to at the banks, will reply with 'I wish that would happen to me')

[Deleted User]

Looks like there is a system problem with Halifax.

Assuming your last statement wasn't zero, you'll get another statement, which should reveal all. If it says zero, call them again.

Samsung_Note2

No doubt the system will correct itself and you full balance will pop back up next month.

If it doesn't then why should you chase them..its their mistake,they are a huge company with plenty of money,take it as fluke of luck and move on.

Shakin_Steve

Odd things do sometimes happen, but I wouldn’t count my chickens....just yet.
I made two purchases in Asda on the same day about two weeks ago. Both around the £25 mark. One showed as a pending transaction almost immediately, there was no sign of the other one. Next day the pending transaction was debited from my balance, still no sign of the other one.
After about a week I thought I’d got away with it, but ten days after the transaction it just appeared in my debits. The date was the same as the first one...go figure.


Good luck, by the way....you never know....

guesswho2000

Not much to add to what others have said, but just on one point...

newbie_user wrote: »

...(we figured out i hadn’t updated my address on my credit file, so it wouldn’t have matched my application)...

You do realise you don't update your address on your credit file? The address is just whatever you put on the application form. The addresses for existing accounts update automatically when you change them with the provider, and you have to do every account individually.

The one thing you do need to do is update your electoral roll info with your District Council. This will take a few months (potentially) to filter through to CRAs, and this will probably impact on credit applications in the meantime (ID verification and all that). That said, you may get somewhere with your appeal, if it is just something like this which has stood in the way.

You might have meant the above anyway, but thought I'd throw this in the mix anyway for others' information, there's a lot of misconceptions about credit reporting/files/"scores", so it may help someone!

Shakin_Steve

guesswho2000 wrote: »

Not much to add to what others have said, but just on one point...



You do realise you don't update your address on your credit file? The address is just whatever you put on the application form. The addresses for existing accounts update automatically when you change them with the provider, and you have to do every account individually.

The one thing you do need to do is update your electoral roll info with your District Council. This will take a few months (potentially) to filter through to CRAs, and this will probably impact on credit applications in the meantime (ID verification and all that). That said, you may get somewhere with your appeal, if it is just something like this which has stood in the way.

You might have meant the above anyway, but thought I'd throw this in the mix anyway for others' information, there's a lot of misconceptions about credit reporting/files/"scores", so it may help someone!

I’ve updated my address on Experian three times. You just go to your account and add/change your address.