Have I knackered my credit Rating - for £3.50?
 

I bought a Christening dress for my daughter from a well known clothes retailer - online - and get their 'directory' every 3 months for a charge of £3.50.

Everything was paid off as soon as I ordered the dress - but I missed paying the minimum payment for the last directory (should've been paid last thursday - just paid it today).

Anyone know if they're likely to be petty enough to inform the credit reference agencies ('cos I didn't pay the 35 pence minimum payment)? And if so does it go on record that it's for a piddlin amount (rather than 2 or 3 grand)?!

(All for something that goes straight in the bin as well).

Cheers.

Should affect you. What is really bad is if you go over your credit card limit or unauthorised overdraft at the bank

Just join experian for their months free trial, then you can have a look at your credit rating and see if its on there.

Possible it is. They have mobile and home phone bills, credit cards etc.

they don't usually record anything until it is a full month late

Essentially the credit rating system is a load of ones and zero's when it is analysed... I might have it the wrong way round but zero's are when something is paid on time and 1's are when a payment is missed...
As it seems you have entered a cerdit agreement (where you were vetted before getting the catelogues) then a 1 will appear on your record against that account for this month - just like if you missed a credit card payment or the likes.
The automated systems that are used to process bog standard credit requests will see the 1 but to be fair unless you want a Harrods store card with unlimited credit, it is unlikely to make any difference whatsoever.
For more important purchases (cars, houses, class A drugs), human underwriters will analyse your history in more detail and will judge your credit on many different things (credit card balance/limit/payment amount and frequency), Bank Loans, Overdrafts, Previous Mortgage etc etc and make an informed decision...
In short this will show but wont make any difference to your life.... :thumb:

Abdabz is almost right, it's a zero if it's on time, then a number representing how many missed payments there have been, so if you don pay anythin for 6 months you'll see it as 6543210

have a look here - http://www.joincreditexpert.com/home....asp?hold=True

If you pay within a month you get a 1. normally 0.

Should be okay with an occaisional 1. Things get bad when 2s appear.

Abdabz is right tho' looks like - 0000000010000010000000 etc

I checked my credit with Equifax about 2 weeks ago, I had a really high score with them. I just checked with Experian and i have a Poor on. What the ****?
This whole credit scoring thing is the most inconsistant pile of bull**** ever.

1 and 2 is fine its when 8 appears 8 = a default.

dont fuss it, not many banks or credit providers use the score provided by equifax and experian ;) in fact most use in house scoring and points systems nowadays. by the way high numbers with equifax isnt actually very good its the opposite iirc :eek:

Agree with that, i used the experian 'free' trial, and payed the fiver for my credit score. Even though I havent missed a single payment on any outstanding ammounts and my score is in the high 900's I have still been refused for a credit card from my own bank!!!!!

I wouldnt worry too much about the £3.50

Thanks for the replies people.

I just had a horrible feeling that it was going to be a case of 'you missed a payment - it doesn't matter how much it was for - tough sh1t'!


Cheers

just printing off my experian free one now, will ring em up tomorrow and cancel the membership

i never relised they went off everything you have ever had on credit
good job i have paid on time :p

i thought they just assesed what you have on credit at the present time.