Delinquent notice on credit file. Is it correct?

[Fyffesy]

Hi all.

 

I'd really appreciate it if somebody could clear this up for me. I checked my Experian credit report a couple of months ago and realised an incorrect entry had been made by a "credit card" company (one of those pre-pay ones with a credit building facility) around 11 months earlier. I'm embarrassed to say I made a stupid miscalculation which meant I missed the final three payments without realising. I presumed I'd allocated the correct amount of money several months in advance but it seems I had a shortfall of three payments. As soon as I realised my mistake I made the payments and presumed the matter was resolved. I rang them and they confirmed that the payment had arrived but would be recorded as being "3 payments late". Obviously I couldn't dispute that because it was my own stupid fault.

 

The account was closed (I think) in January 2012 but when I checked with Experian in November 2012, I discovered that Cashplus had recorded an inexplicable outstanding balance of £9.00 in January which meant it was regarded as "delinquent" by Experian (but not defaulted). It remained that way with no further activity until I checked in November.

 

I wrote to APS Cashplus to point out their mistake and they have accepted that they'd made an error over the £9.00 and they've corrected it with the credit reference agencies. However, the account appearing on Experian has a status of "3 payments late" with a balance stating "settled". Of course I accept that the 3 late payments must be recorded but I'm not entirely sure they've done this correctly.

 

In a nutshell, what I'm asking is if it's correct that I am being penalised by a "delinquent account" even though the balance has been paid (albeit slightly late) and is now £0.00 and the account is settled? I accept that it was three payments late but I find it difficult to believe that this should still be regarded as a delinquent account on my file for the next 5 years or so. The last two payments on this account have been recorded on Experian as "late" even though the balance was zero on both. I've copied the info below as it appears on Experian. The ones in orange were classed as late payments even though the last two were zero (is it possible to be late paying off a balance of zero?).

 

 

Balance:

£0 £0 £14 £14 £14 £14 £19 £24 £29 £34 £39 £44

 

Any thoughts and opinions would be very much appreciated

[BRIGADIER2JCS]

Term is a late payment so delinquent out of order etc., Yes it is correct ''slightly late'' is still late.

Looks like LP charges of £5 a time added.

You have to take this up with the creditor.

[Fyffesy]

Thank for the quick reply. I was 90% sure they hadn't made a mistake with this but wanted to run it past you guys before contacting them.

 

The only reason I ask is because Experian themselves have an example on their website of a "settled account" which shows a couple of late payments which have been remedied by a third transaction which clears the balance. This third payment is "green" because the balance is zero. I was just curious as to why my zero is orange/delinquent and the example's zero is green/satisfactory. Anyway, here's the link if anybody is interested:

http://www.experian.co.uk/assets/consumer/credit-score/files/credit-expert-YCRE.pdf

 

(it's about halfway down the page)