Card company didn't credit my payment in time

ElwoodBlues

I've had this credit card for many years, and I've always paid the balance in full and on time, every month. Last month I duly made payment on the 30th June (payment was due 3rd July). Made the payment through the card company's website, which went through successfully. They sent me a confirmation email on the 30th June and I can see the debit card transaction leaving my current account on the 30th June too.

So I was surprised to receive a text message from them on the 5th July saying my payment was due. Logged in to their website and it's not showing the payment being credited to my account, instead I have a £12 default sum fee. I contacted them through their messaging service and a few days later received an email saying that my payment had now been applied and that any fees or interest would be refunded over the next few days. They have applied my payment, but not back dated it to the 30th June, it's showing as 6th July (i.e. late).

I've now received the next monthly statement and they have indeed credited the £12 default sum fee, but now they've also added the interest that I've supposedly incurred from not clearing last month's balance! Also, the statement contains a 'Notice of default sums' and tells me that I failed to make the minimum payment last month. 

All this kind of suggests that they haven't properly corrected their mistake - they've let their system think my payment was late and then they've manually adjusted to remove the default fee, but the interest is wrong and I shouldn't have been issued with a default notice.

So now I'm going to need to chase them again to get the interest removed and my statement reissued. How likely is it that they're going to mis report to CRA's that I've defaulted on a payment? 

junglist_matty

I've missed a couple of payments (by a few days) over the years and paid as soon as I was aware of my mistake, I've not had any red marks on my credit record...

If you’ve missed a payment deadline, creditors will often send out a reminder to pay. Some will even grant you a grace period (typically 14 days) to make the payment before they notify the credit reference agencies (Experian, Equifax and TransUnion). 

Catsacor

This is not good money management.
Paying in so late, and so close to the due date will incur situations like this all the time.
Give the systems at least 3 working days instead of under a 24 hour window.

DullGreyGuy

ElwoodBlues said:

I've had this credit card for many years, and I've always paid the balance in full and on time, every month. Last month I duly made payment on the 30th June (payment was due 3rd July). Made the payment through the card company's website, which went through successfully. They sent me a confirmation email on the 30th June and I can see the debit card transaction leaving my current account on the 30th June too.

So I was surprised to receive a text message from them on the 5th July saying my payment was due. Logged in to their website and it's not showing the payment being credited to my account, instead I have a £12 default sum fee. I contacted them through their messaging service and a few days later received an email saying that my payment had now been applied and that any fees or interest would be refunded over the next few days. They have applied my payment, but not back dated it to the 30th June, it's showing as 6th July (i.e. late).

I've now received the next monthly statement and they have indeed credited the £12 default sum fee, but now they've also added the interest that I've supposedly incurred from not clearing last month's balance! Also, the statement contains a 'Notice of default sums' and tells me that I failed to make the minimum payment last month. 

All this kind of suggests that they haven't properly corrected their mistake - they've let their system think my payment was late and then they've manually adjusted to remove the default fee, but the interest is wrong and I shouldn't have been issued with a default notice.

So now I'm going to need to chase them again to get the interest removed and my statement reissued. How likely is it that they're going to mis report to CRA's that I've defaulted on a payment? 

What time on the 30th did you pay?
What is the official language around debit card payments?

If you look at AmEx for example it states that debt card payments normally are credited instantly but can take up to 3 business days. If your card issuer has similar language you simply paid too close to the deadline to deal with the cases where it's not instant.

It would be reported as a late payment, not a default. 

Keep_pedalling

As the 30th was a Friday you only gave your payment one working day to clear. When I pay off my Nationwide CC with a transfer from my Nationwide current the payment from the CA reduces my balance instantly but it takes few days before that credit appears on the CC statement.  Having said that my last payment was also on the 30th June and that is the date that appears on my CC statement (due date was 12th July). 

I can understand leaving the payment until payday, but to do that safely you need to shift the payment due date of your CC into the second week of the following month.

ElwoodBlues

I've been paying off this credit card monthly by this method for over 10 years and it's never, ever been a problem before. Even on occasions where I've paid at 11pm on the due date. They treat it as paid the moment the transaction is authorised, even if it doesn't show up for a few days, the payment date always shows up as the transaction date.

This time they've had some sort of system error because the payment wasn't allocated to my account for an entire week - and then it was only done after I'd contacted them to point out the issue. Their reply included an apology for the delay so clearly there's been an issue with their system.

FredTrump

Either pay by Direct Debit or by Faster Payment (at least) the working day before the payment is due - in this case would have been the 29th June. If you want to pay by Debit card, I would allow at least 3 working days. 

th081

I think it unlikely they will report to the CRA that you was late with your payment given its only a few days. I have many times made payments and the date is always the date it was approved and as you say even though it might take a day or two to be reflected.

ElwoodBlues

FredTrump said:

Either pay by Direct Debit or by Faster Payment (at least) the working day before the payment is due - in this case would have been the 29th June. If you want to pay by Debit card, I would allow at least 3 working days. 

The card company say to allow 5 working days for 'faster payments' transfers to get credited.

I managed to get through to them on the phone this time, and they credited the interest back without quibble, apologised again for their systems error and said to ignore the default notice. It means I will have to pay the interest this month to have it credit back next as it's already on the statement, not worth trying to argue over that though. Most important thing is that they don't mark my credit file incorrectly, which sounds unlikely.

penners324

If there's no interest, no late payment fee and no late marker with any of the cras.

If there is any of those contact the card provider and request they remove them all.

Payments are instant these days so it's incompetence of the card provider