Help with credit score?

[girlcrushonvillanelle]

I had a great credit score, which I had been working on for years.

A direct debit request went to my bank for a credit card, and it bounced as I had gone overdrawn.

I was then informed and within 6 days of the bounced DD they received £500 from me to clear the balance plus some extra.

This has now completely destroyed my credit score and I'm devastated!!

This seems so cruel!!

Any advice please to get this decision changed. I have spoken to the credit card company and they have said that they wont change it as it wasn't a banking error.

I could understand if the payment went unpaid until the next statement, but to pay it straight away!!

I'm so cross - can you tell!?

One late payment shouldn't 'completely destroy' your credit score. Can you explain exactly what has changed?

You won't get the CC company to change anything as it is a factual account of what happened.

Check out clearscore.com, it's a free credit score website. You'll see the missed payment on there, and it'll be fine. It will only be an issue if you need credit, and even then, they will look at all your many payments made on time and see that as a one off (I imagine).

It could be 1 day late, or 1 month late, but it will still be a missed payment unfortunately.

Credit score means nothing. Credit history is what matters.

How much has your score gone down by?

I'm bumping this up!

I've just looked at my credit report through my NatWest banking app, it gives me a score of late-500's
It doesn't give me any pointers on what is causing it to be lower or tips to improve it.
I have one negative which is that I "don't have a mortgage" but my new five year plan is to get one, so I want to improve my credit rating as much as possible. Any ideas?

What is the best place to get a more detailed report through? Clear score or Experian?

I found Experian good but also check my file is really good as you can check what’s affecting your score and it shows you ways to improve

Clear score gives you tips. Eg using over 50% of your credit card limit is a negative. I was marked down as it didn't take into account it was a zero % cc and if you looked at balances across all cards it was 20% usage.

Also credit searches count.

I just downloaded Experian and it has my credit score of 999, the highest it can be!
How's that work then, if NatWest had me at "fair"?

Credit scores are fairly meaningless.

A single late payment on a credit card where the payment is made before the next statement is generated is sailing close to the wind but a minor blip that you can usually get away with, once at least.

Are you planning to apply for credit any time soon? If not, just forget about it. And even if you are, whoever you apply to might not even notice, depending on what is reported to the credit reference agencies. Just keep a closer eye on your account so it doesn't happen again.

Well the appeal was upheld which I'm very pleased about! Phew!!