Barclaycard making me chew holes through my own teeth

[Chilly]

Request a credit report from some company (statutory cost of £2 for a standard report) and see exactly whats on there. Then you can request to add a comment next to an item explaining what went on. I'm not exactly sure about the mechanism for doing so but it's built into law somewhere so don't take any bullshit.

 

[Guest]

aha, best way.

 

[Gumbo]

Chilly is right. You should be able to get this episode expunged (great word) from your credit record. Assuming they agree with your version of events.

As for the negligent legal advice. I think, although you can check on this, that the solicitors you used will need to have a complaints partner, who you contact first. You then have to complain again, if you're not happy with the outcome, and then you can go to the law society. Once you've established that they did, in fact act negligently, you can pursue them for damages. But this is going to be another heap of legal crap to go through. Sorry

 

[Rubric]

Your credit report shows how late you are with payments. One late payment in an otherwise good record is not going to give you any real problems.

If they registered a default against you however that is more serious but they can remove this from your credit file.

You can also write a letter to be attached to your credit file explaining any problems that resulted in a bad rating one month for late payment or the default notice if they refuse to remove it.

As has been said first port of call is to get your credit record and find what the actual problem is.

On another note when you apply for any type of credit you do not have to accept the computers decision you can demand to have it reviewed by a person and you can explain what happened with Barclays.

 

[Kryten]

Quite agree. Barclaycard are indeed able to remove that black mark.
Another sharp letter explaining something along the lines of

"Thank you for the £35 compensation however you appear to have still marked my otherwise excellent credit record with an erroneous black mark. I would therefore like to ascertain that upon receipt of this letter you will take immediate remedial action to remove this black mark and offer a more suitable level of compensation for the stress and high levels of inconvenience caused. I have kept a copy of this letter, and a copy of my credit report which will be passed to my legal aide should you decide to act in an unreasonable manner; then of course the same copies will be sent to the Office of Fair Trading and the FOS."

Just because they're big doesn't mean they don't make mistakes. Chances are it's an oversight, they'll get this letter and think "oh shit, will get right on that". But then of course they might just be trying to squeeze you for everything you've got for little to no reason, in which case supplying credit reports and their correspondence to the financial ombudsman service and oft will make them look further into it. And then hopefully compensate you a little more for the problems caused.

I'm not a big fan of the compensation culture, at least not for petty things - but when someone is actually causing an ongoing issue like this, it's the least they can do. You might be happy with a fix and an apology, but that rarely helps you when you've been trying to get credit elsewhere and refused because of their errors.

 

[Chilly]

no need for the lawyers in the first letter about it tbh. itl just piss whoever is reading it off - and you need them to be your mate.