Credit report default

[David993]

Hi All,

I was hoping someone might be able to help me, perhaps someone has been in a similar situation to me before. 

Back in January I changed my account from Virgin Media, this involved paying my March bill and then cancelling the direct debit, as instructed. I did not know of any issue until my recent mortgage application was rejected due to a default payment from Virgin Media of £15. I have investigated and found that a final bill was raised that I never received. I received text messages about sending the box back, but no further communication and so assumed that the dates had worked out and there was nothing left for me to pay.

Having received no letters, emails, texts or phone calls I didn't know that this was on my account, and it was obviously quite a nasty shock. I phoned the customer services team to discuss why I did not receive any notification like I did for my previous bills but they could not offer any advice or help as to how the bill was communicated and whether or a not a bill was sent.

Can anyone help with advice on what to do, or how to contact the credit file amendments team? The customer services team told me their email address. However the automatic response says they will get back to people in 21 days but if I don't get this sorted in the next few days I am going to lose the house I have offered on. Please remove the defaults in error, what or who can I speak too?

[SCA1972 · Accepted solution]

AFAIK only the team you have already emailed can resolve this issue, it is not something the staff here can help with.

Based on the following post this is not something that gets resolved quickly:

https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Community-Natter/How-long-does-it-take-to-update-a-credit-file-...

Who advised you to cancel the direct debit?  All the advice I have ever seen says to leave a DD active with any company you leave for a few months at least to allow for any final payments to be taken, or refunds.  There is no risk to leaving it active as the DD guarantee protects you from any incorrect charges.

______________________
Scott

My setup: VM TV box, M350 Fibre broadband with Hub 3 in modem mode connected to a Netgear R7000 router. Telewest/VM user since 2001.

[Molly_G · Accepted solution]

Hi @David993,

Welcome to the forums and many thanks for your recent post. I'm so sorry to hear of the situation you have been left in with regards to your credit file.

As SCA1972 has advised, unfortunately we are unable to deal with this directly at the forums - we can deal with outstanding balances but in this case, I can only confirm what our agent has already, which is that the balance is showing at 0 on the account.

I appreciate you are already in contact with the Credit File Amendments team who are the right team to look into it at this point. The timeframe given is their estimate but they aim to have issues resolved within that, I do apologise for the wait and hope this is resolved quickly for you.

Kind regards,

[David993]

Hi Scott,

Thanks for the response. The customer services team who I phoned to cancel are the ones that advised that the direct debit could be cancelled after the next payment. 

I will wait to see what the credit file amendments team come back with.

[David993]

Hi Molly,

Thanks for the response. I will wait and see what the credit file team say given this is the best route.

[SCA1972 · Accepted solution]

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@David993 wrote:

Hi Scott,

Thanks for the response. The customer services team who I phoned to cancel are the ones that advised that the direct debit could be cancelled after the next payment. 

I will wait to see what the credit file amendments team come back with.

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That was very bad advice and hopefully someone from VM (@Molly_G? @ModTeam?) will be able to feed this back to the customer services team.

Hope the credit file team get back to you sooner rather than later, although I'm willing to bet they don't work weekends or bank holidays.

______________________
Scott

[hortonj88]

Best thing to do is settle the bill asap.

Once done it should get reported to the credit reference agencies as a "Settled" account.

But it usually takes 30 days for your credit file to update.

[David993]

Hi Scott,

Yes when I was advised to do this I did not think it through but in hindsight I should of ignored that part of the instruction and just left the direct debit. If I ever am in this situation again I will leave the direct debit. I would rather have to fight for a refund then go through this again. 

I did not think the credit team would be working weekends hence why I decided to make a post to see what else could be done but I have luckily had a response from them in the last hour confirming the default will be removed. It may not show against my credit report for up to 14 days but hopefully the email proof will be enough for my lender.

Thank you for your help and advice on this matter it is much appreciated given it has been a stressful week.

[David993]

Yes I did phone them right away when my lender advised I had a default and made the payment. I have had a response from the credit team as well the default will be removed so hopefully things are all sorted now.

[Zoie_P]

Hi David, 

Keep us posted on this and if you have any more issues or if it has not been removed.

Zoie