Am I right to be really annoyed at this - mortgage payment and credit file issue

[hipflasker]

Hi,

We pay our mortgage by direct debit each month. Never missed a payment in 19 years. Last month on 30th December I noticed that there wasn't enough money in our account to cover the payment. Our annual car insurance had come out and I had forgotten. This meant that there wasn't enough money in the account for the mortgage payment and it was reversed.

I contacted the bank immediately via their webchat facility and apologised. I have another account with them with money in it. The member of staff transferred the money from this account to my mortgage account so that the payment was made. The member of staff told that as the payment had been received on the due date there would be no issue, but that I might just receive a few automated messages as the system sends these out automatically.

I asked if there would be any adverse impact on my credit file and I was told that this was very unlikely as I had paid on the day the mortgage payment was due. The member of staff also said that if this did happen it would be reversed as I had paid on time.

A week later I was still getting alerts telling me we were in arrears. I called the bank and they apologised. They confirmed that there were no arrears and that they had raised a request for this to all be sorted. I was given £25 as an apology.

This morning we both had alerts from our Credit file app telling is that a late mortgage payment has been logged on our credit files. I am so angry about this. I have called and the lady at the bank has apologised and told me that this shouldn't have happened. Apparently someone at the bank raised the request for anything adverse to be removed from our credit files on 7th January. The lady explained that she could not understand why this had not been done. She put me on hold whilst she spoke to the relevant team. She returned to tell me that she had contacted the relevant team and they would action this on Monday, but that it could take 8 weeks to sort out. I don't get this. It took them 20 days to log the ( incorrect) late payment, but it'll take 8 weeks to remove it?

I feel like this is a piss take! AIBU?

8 weeks sounds like the amount of time you have to give them to deal with complaints before you can go to the Ombudsman.

So you have to give them this time unfortunately, its standard procedure. They might correct the adverse information more quickly, but if they don't, go to the Ombudsman.

To reduce the risk of this happening again, you could put an authorised overdraft on the account but pretend it doesn't exist except for situations like this. We have a £1k facility that we never use but increases the money available if a forgotten large debit comes out at an inconvenient time.

You could also have a credit card saved as the payment method for your insurance as it reduces the risk of it being forgotten.

It Is your fault the money was not in the account and as everything is automated now the employees have little control.

Simply get a credit card or use another account for your annual DD.

You will have to waist for the process to be completed now.

Are you looking for credit in the next 8 weeks?

I completely disagree with shine. It is their fault, one payment failed but paid via a different account before payment date. You've phoned numerous times and chased, they've apologised numerous times. And yet this has still happened. How quickly can it be done, they could at least offer to expedite sorting it, they should've already offered to expedite this, as it was their error, so it's done asap, rather than taking 8 weeks. Phone again and complain and ask for it to be investigated.

Sadly, in the eyes of your bank you had a payment failure, even though you immediately paid the amount due via a different payment method. I feel for you because this will result in a late payment marker on your credit reference files which will have an impact, even though you corrected the mistake very quickly.

You're right, it would not take 8 weeks to remove this late payment marker, they're choosing not to, but not telling you - they've started the clock on their complaints procedure which gives them 8 weeks. I suspect strongly they will come back and say they have acted appropriately, as you did in reality (even if just for a few hours) have a failed/late payment.

They are pretty ruthless nowadays, always alert to a change in spending patterns, late payments, a missed payment - all can be, to them, a sign of financial distress. These markers are also used to alert other institutions you may also have borrowings with. Most lenders now check your files automatically every 7 days, they're systems updating accordingly.

I hope they are reasonable and allow you this one error, they used to years ago, 1 late payment did not automatically have an immediate negative effect on your blemish free credit history. Nowadays, like I say, they're ruthless.

Sorry you've experienced this, it's not fair in your case.

Change the payment method on your insurance to a continuous pay,ent authority on your credit card, it's safer if you don't have an overdraft facility on your bank account to cover you for such errors.

They have said that they will remove the info - I just don't get why it would take 8 weeks

You didn't have money to pay due to your mistake, it's resulted in a late payment alert, the bank have offered to delete it and you got £25 compensation - and you are annoyed why? You made a mistake and you have benefited from it. You seem to have a huge sense of entitlement to not have any consequences to your own mistake. Accept you made a mistake and chalk it up to experience. We all make mistakes but we do also have to live with the consequences.

You haven't read my thread properly. I totally accept that it was my fault to have not had the money present in the account. I called and paid manually ON THE DUE DATE. I was told that there would be no issue. however I have had 3 weeks of arrears notifications and now a late payment marker logged on my credit file.

I have read your thread properly and the bank are going to remove the late payment marker but you are annoyed it will take 8 weeks.

I wouldn't worry too much about this during the 8 weeks whilst they investigate. These things usually take some time as it will be allocated to a complaints team and will join their queue to review in due course. They are regulated in terms of how this will play out.

It will, I suspect, depend on whether they class the payment failure as default or if their terms are payment date driven as you could, in theory, choose to pay manually each month which would mean that the date as opposed to the DD is the marker for making a satisfactory payment?

The financial ombudsman will be available to you if you don't get a satisfactory outcome but it's really important that you keep a detailed record of each event / call / email and always ask the name of the banks call handler at each touch point.

All the best op, I am fiercely protective of my credit file so I really do see where you're coming from, whether you intend to apply for credit or not.

yes but I didn't pay late so this should not have happened

It could take 8 weeks as credit file uploads are not regular, although IMO they are usually supplied every 4 weeks to credit reference agencies - maybe they’re saying 8 in case something prevents it happening this month.

tbh OP, it’s just one of those things. It’ll be no issue to remove it from your credit file. Poor customer service but not a big issue

It won’t be an issue. It is not a late payment. There are strict definitions of late and missed payments. This doesn’t meet them. There won’t be an investigation

it shouldn’t need complaints processing unless OP has raised a separate complaint- however this has no impact on the correction to the credit file

Completely missing the point of the thread.....
But why is you car insurance set up to auto-renew? Do you not shop around?
If i had auto renewed this time round it would have cost me over £600 more than what I actually paid.

Maybe she’d already seen it was the best quote? You don’t need to do anything if you want to accept your current insurers offer

You made a mistake, then the bank made a mistake. Unless you're applying for credit in the next 8 weeks, this will have no impact on you. So just sit it out and chalk it up to experience.

You missed the fact that the mortgage payment was made on time but simply by a different method. At no time was there any arrears. The bank is aware of this.

I set mine for auto renew but then shop around when I get the reminder. Often the auto renew price is still the best. I have it for autorenew in case I forget or don't find time to look or if I am away so that I don't end up in the situation where I am left uninsured.

Speak to someone at Experian - they are incredibly helpful - we had a negative mark against our business account which was nothing to do with us and they sorted it all out for us!

This is different as it’s a valid piece of information from OPs mortgage provider- it’s just wrong. The mortgage provider has to correct it

also there are lots of credit reference agencies and Experian only update their own files, not the other credit ref agencies

@AquaPeer sounds like a standard complaint, particularly given the goodwill £25 already paid

You did pay late because when the money was requested it wasn’t there. You need to stop going on about it, accept the mistake and don’t do it again. If the bank had to take individual late payments from every single person who had a mortgage with them it would create a huge amount of extra admin and personalised attention. That’s why it is all automated and everything clicks into place automatically. Late means not paid when requested, and you didn’t pay when requested so you were late. Now you know that, you won’t make the same mistake again. There’s literally no point making a fuss about it. You asked if you were unreasonable to make a fuss and my answer is, yes, yes you are unreasonable.

Sorry but that's nonsense. My payment was due on Dec 30th and it was made in full on Dec 30th. If I had paid manually on 31st Dec then you would be correct.

@Owly11 I don't agree with owls about entitlement at all. Op paid on time by another method. She was told by an employee it was fine and wouldn't be a problem. Hold onto that fact op, that you have a case because one employee (rightly or wrongly) already told you it would be ok.

We will have to agree to disagree. You asked for my opinion, I gave it, and you have rejected it.

As above there is an official definition of a late payment in banking. Yours is not one. You can’t just argue it is because you think differently.