Checking a credit rating/marker
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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!
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!
Seen it all, done it all, can't remember most of it.
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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.
I doubt that the late payment marker appears on your credit files but you can check.
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
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.
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...
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.
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.