Paying Your Credit Card In Full Can Still Leave A Minimum Payment Marker ........

molerat

...... In Some Particular Circumstances

Looking at my MSE Experian report today and noticed a load of Ms on some of my credit cards.  I thought this was weird as I always without fail pay the full statement balance, if there is one, by DD every month.

As we are all aware, the minimum payment is something like 2% of the balance, £5 or the full balance whichever is lower.  Now it seems that if the full balance is the lowest of the 3 you get a big fat M on your report.  As these Ms are supposedly bad it seems a totally unfair marker.  Any thoughts out there ?

Brie

Not sure what the difference is between the MSE Experian report and the full Experian credit history that a bank or whomever might look at.  The full ones would show your credit cards as green light with a zero balance which is lovely.  If you were actually making minimum payments your card balance would show each month.  They would still show a green light but make it obvious you weren't clearing in full.

Kim_13

A cautionary tale for anyone maintaining credit cards with minimal use for the Direct Debits - make sure that £5.01 (or £6 might be safer) a month is spent on them. 

 

1) Download any affected statements now (together with proof of clearing the balance in full) if you don’t already have them filed - I can only go back a year on my CC provider’s app, and there’s a chance they might charge me for copies of anything older. 

2) Ask the Card Provider to correct the record as the balance was cleared in full at all times

If 2 doesn’t work, then 3) Approach the CRAs with the relevant statements and proof of full payment being made.

4) In the event 3 doesn’t work, go back to the card provider telling them so and raise a formal complaint if they still don’t resolve the issue. Escalate to the Ombudsman if necessary - you’ll be able to tell them that you’ve tried everything you could have to get the erroneous markers removed, including contacting the CRAs yourself, while also giving yourself the best chance of getting the markers removed without having to let them lie for the time that a complaint/the ombudsman would take.

molerat

Raised a concern with Experian and they have already replied that the marker has been removed, will have to wait a month to see though as the report was only produced today.

They have only pointed the reply at the one card so I need to report the other one although that has been closed in the past month.  Only 2 of the 6 cards that I have low spending on, Tesco and Virgin, have been reported as M though.  Have never noticed the M before today's report  but have checked back and they are there.

They both have a minimum payment of £25 so quite a bar to avoid an M.  All the others are £5 but I often don't spend that and don't get a marker.

molerat

Just had an e-mail from Experian stating M has been removed from the Virgin account.  A pretty swift response to be fair.

surreysaver

I've got a 0% purchases M&S credit card. It doesn't show on my credit reports as a special rate, so it appears I'm only paying minimum payments on my full-rate balance. I believe this works in my favour, as it appears I'm a profitable customer, so get large limits when I apply for other cards

molerat

It is a fine balance between profitable customer and can only afford to pay minimum so a risk of defaulting so I would rather not see anything that could be construed as negative especially when the balances are so low.