do credit card companies check credit files of existing customers?

[platespinners]

Bit of a strange question I know....

I have a couple of credit cards and a loan. this is (normally) very well managed debt and nothing unmanageable. Last month I slipped up and paid one of the cards late - my fault and quickly rectified, however it has been marked as a late payment on my credit file.

Will my other credit card company and loan company see this straight away? I have checked my report and none of my other creditors have carried out a credit search on me, however do they get this information instantly?

Maybe, maybe not. It will say something in their T&Cs and they'll likely have algorithms that identify when they'd do this. From their point of view, if you're going to get into difficulty, they want to know as soon as possible so they can reduce the risk that you'll get into bad debt/borrow money and not pay it back.

A one off mistake on it's own is unlikely to trigger any serious warnings for them, likewise at this time of year, they might have a lot of people paying late if they've overspent at Christmas or struggled with a longer than normal gap between pay days. But in most cases again it will be a one off and people will pay on time in the future.

It won't matter as long as you're not planning to remortgage in the very short term, or you don't suffer any other issues, eg loss of income, increase in compulsory costs like mortgage going up or childcare costs etc.