Thames water late payment report to cra

leyle88

I pay my bill when I recieve it via post. 
Thames water has placed a late marker on my credit file without my knowledge saying I paid the bill late 1 month. I never recieved the bill and am uptodate with all my bills.
They refuse to remove the marker and said " having looked at your history although you are upto date you have multiple times when the bill hasnt been paid promptly albeit not past the 1 month deadline we give for you to pay the bill" 
So ive paid not late but not promptly. I dont see how that can be a defence to refuse to remove the marker. 
This will affect my mortgage renewal rate. Ive explained everything but they dont care. Where do I stand with this?

MattMattMattUK

leyle88 said:

I pay my bill when I recieve it via post. 
Thames water has placed a late marker on my credit file without my knowledge saying I paid the bill late 1 month. I never recieved the bill and am uptodate with all my bills.
They refuse to remove the marker and said " having looked at your history although you are upto date you have multiple times when the bill hasnt been paid promptly albeit not past the 1 month deadline we give for you to pay the bill" 
So ive paid not late but not promptly. I dont see how that can be a defence to refuse to remove the marker. 

The answers will be very similar to when you asked about doing the same with your energy provider. 
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6645653/utility-destroyed-my-credit-rating

Essentially you did not pay on time, you claim this is because you did not receive a copy in the post, however they are also available online and you have the choice of paying by Direct Debit as well. From the text you quote it seems like you are paraphrasing rather than directly quoting them, I suspect that their definition of late is paid before the due date, yours is you pay when you get a paper bill.

Set up a Direct Debit or if you insist on paying on receipt of bill then set a reminder and download them every month. 

leyle88 said:

This will affect my mortgage renewal rate.

It is highly unlikely to impact your mortgage renewal interest rate unless you are trying to remortgage with a different provider and even then one missed payment will have marginal if any impact, however in combination with your other missed payments it may cause an issue if you are trying to move to a different lender. 

leyle88 said:

Ive explained everything but they dont care.

The report factual information, your payment was not received by the due date, therefore it is late. Them caring is not relevant, they just reported a fact to a CRA.

leyle88 said:

Where do I stand with this?

You are where you are, the best course of action going forward would be to set up Direct Debits or payment reminders for all your bills so you do not miss any more payments for your utilities. Relying on some dead tree turning up via snail mail is obviously not working for you so you need to use a viable alternative. 

leyle88

Can they legally just register a late bill notice? I never remember them mentioning this when signing up. When you take out a loan/ mortgage they tell you that should your payment be late it can affect your credit score but not with the thames water.

Ayr_Rage

Time to get organised, get a DD set up for energy and save money by paying by that method rather on receipt of bill.

Same with water, get a DD set up.

You are your own worst enemy by relying on snail mail for billing these days.

Utility companies may one day (if not already doing so) report late payments to the CRAs so they could influence future credit.

MattMattMattUK

leyle88 said:

Can they legally just register a late bill notice? I never remember them mentioning this when signing up.

If you are late then yes they can, they do not need to explicitly tell you, you do not need to grant them permission.

leyle88 said:

When you take out a loan/ mortgage they tell you that should your payment be late it can affect your credit score but not with the thames water.

They tell you that failing to keep up with your mortgage payments may lead to losing your home. I have never seen a load say that failing to keep up to date with payments would impact one's credit score, even more so because credit scores are made up and no lender ever sees them.

As has been said above and on your previous thread, set up a Direct Debit and stop relying on snail mail.