Checking a credit rating/marker

SevenOfNine

Is there an innocent way to check a credit rating, that won't flag anything up anywhere?

I used a Nationwide credit card to pay N/W travel insurance £126, the card is in date but hasn't been used for a couple of years.  I have a direct debit set up to pay the bills in full, all other c/c bills are paid the same way.

I got a text from N/W telling me to contact them, I was told my payment was late, I'd been charged £12 late payment fee & 2% interest.  Questioning further the operative 'implied' Lloyds seemed to have a "dormancy policy", therefore N/W could not take the d/d & I should speak to Lloyds. 

He said late payment had put a "marker" on my credit rating, but that he would refund the charges now & resubmit to Lloyds for payment. He'd have the marker removed which might take 6-8 weeks.  Asked polite but nosy questions about my current financial circumstances - very healthy thank you very much!

Checked Lloyds a/c, d/d is there, just says "frequency unknown", rang & operative said they have no such thing as a "dormancy policy" for d/ds set up, but she could see that it   had been 'reactivated' the previous day.

Now I don't trust N/W to have been truthful about Lloyds having a "dormancy policy" (Lloyds said it was more likely N/Ws policy).  I want to check my credit rating without it flagging somewhere I'm unaware of, & make sure that any 'marker' is removed. I've cancelled the card, don't want this happening again for a card with a piddling £2k limit, that I only had for taking on holiday!

MorningcoffeeIV

There's no way to check your credit rating, as it is calculated individually by each lender.

You can check what appears on your files by checking each of your three reports.  The CRAs will know that you have looked at your files, but that's not a cause for concern unless you're running from other debts and update your address.

Band7

You can check what credit reference agencies hold for you: https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/loans/check-free-credit-report/

I doubt that the late payment marker appears on your credit files but you can check.

PRAISETHESUN

DDs don't usually go dormant unless they haven't been used for over 13 months - I suspect this is what has happened here since you say the card hasn't been used for a while. It's not specifically a Lloyds thing, but a general DD thing.

As for the late payment marker - it is an accurate description of what has happened and removing it is purely a gesture of goodwill on the part of Nationwide. You can check your credit files from the 3 CRAs (Experian, Equifax and TransUnion) for free by either following the link @Band7 has posted, or by requesting copies of your "statutory credit file" directly from the CRAs themselves under GDPR rules. It might take a month or two for any changes to be visible, but if they stick to their word it will get removed. That said, a single marker in an otherwise good credit history will mean very little in the grand scheme of things, particularly in a few months time

YorkshireBoy

PRAISETHESUN said:

DDs don't usually go dormant unless they haven't been used for over 13 months


removing it is purely a gesture of goodwill on the part of Nationwide. 

It was 13 months for many years, but now looks to be a minimum of 24 months according to...

https://www.directdebit.co.uk/faqs/inactive-direct-debits/#:~:text=What happens when a Direct,date of the last payment.

OP, bearing in mind the 'goodwill' to be extended, I think I'd have waited until they'd removed the CRA marker before closing the account.

Nebulous2

I'm not sure if I'm reading this correctly, but there is no mention the money has been paid, you appear to be waiting on the DD being retaken. 

A manual payment would have been sensible to prevent any more issues with the DD. 

You don't want it rolling over into another month... 

SevenOfNine

Thanks all.

Used Band7s suggestion through MSE & got a score of 896 or something, out of 999 - that will do as we have a Barclays cashback for every day & Halifax Clarity as a spare & for holiday emergency. Always pay in full, which is why I was so cross to get only the 2nd 'late payment' charge, the other being in the 70's & I've never forgotten it!

YorkshireBoy, thanks for link, seems like Lloyds don't even know there is a dormancy policy, neither did I. She was adamant they have no such thing.

DD was retaken, credit for late pay/interest was refunded & transferred back to me via a small N/W Flexplus we use for travel insurance facility & card is cancelled. Hasn't really been needed anyway.

molerat

Article from 2020 covering the change from 13 to 24months here https://newseventsinsights.wearepay.uk/news-in-brief/direct-debit-dormancy-period-temporarily-extended/

last week we confirmed we have also taken the step to temporarily extend the Direct Debit dormancy period to a minimum of 24 months – for those operating a 13 month dormancy period - with effect from 29 June.

So, why have we done this? Due to the increasing offering of payment holidays and deferments during the pandemic, to rightly support consumers through these difficult times, it is clear that these changing payment schedules could cause the minimum 13 month dormancy period to be exceeded in some limited cases.

Another here from 2010 with two interesting lines  https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/saving/article-1690010/Bank-axed-direct-debit-without-telling-me.html

Officially, it is the responsibility of the organisation the consumer is paying – in this case M&S - to inform them of when a direct debit is nearing its 'dormancy period'. They must ensure the customer pays by an alternative method, renew the existing direct debit or set up a new one, according to Bacs, the electronic transfer service responsible for direct debit collections.

However, a search of direct debit terms and conditions on the websites of all of the major banks and credit card providers shows they fail to point out the Dormancy Rule, which was founded in 1997. Only Principality Building Society has it clearly spelled out on its website.

Band7

SevenOfNine said:

Thanks all.

Used Band7s suggestion through MSE & got a score of 896 or something, out of 999

Just to be clear: the credit ratings you can see in your CRA files are meaningless. They are merely the view of the CRA of your creditworthiness, and each CRA has a different rating and a different way to arrive at it. But none of the CRAs are lenders, and none of the lenders take the CRA rating into account. You need to look at the detail in your CRAs - things like late payments and hard searches are what matters.

Marchitiello

As the op does not look familiar with the concept of Credit File, it may be worth for him to understand that the marker would be under the specific card account, under the section that shows payments. In my experience it takes at least a month for the Credit File to be fully update with such things. I also agree that an immediate manual payment over the phone and then wait for my request to remove the payment marker was completed before closing the account would have been a better strategy