Hi all,
I'm going to make this as short as possible any hope someone can offer some advice;
In 2014, I maxed out my credit card (e2000). I was paying back min amounts and in August 2014, prior to a move abroad, I paid off e500 (stupidly thinking this would "cover me" for a few months). When I was settled in the new country, by Jan 2015, I started paying what i thought were min repayments - however I was paying e50 when I should have been paying e55.
Here's where it gets a bit tricky. I received two letters on Saturday May 16th, one dated May 5th, the other May 12th. The letter dated May 5th was the first correspondence I received from the bank about the arrears, despite the fact that I had phoned recently for various reasons (including to cancel my credit card after a burglary). the letters were delayed presumably because they were going overseas. The bank hadn't changed the records of my new number and were not able to contact me about the arrears by phone because of this (someone in customer care said they had tried to contact me via phone, but had the wrong (not updated) number).
In the end, they cancelled my card and gave my a bad credit rating/grade despite my offering to pay off the whole amount.
I am now in the process of moving home and realizing that this bad rating will affect my ability to get a mortgage and probably other things. Should I speak to a solicitor about getting the debt expunged? Do I have a leg to stand on? I feel the fact that the letters came late and the mess-up with the phone number on their part could stand to me?
Any advice would be massively appreciated. The irony is, I can't even open a saving account with this bank now to transfer a large lump sum of savings because of this incident.
I'm going to make this as short as possible any hope someone can offer some advice;
In 2014, I maxed out my credit card (e2000). I was paying back min amounts and in August 2014, prior to a move abroad, I paid off e500 (stupidly thinking this would "cover me" for a few months). When I was settled in the new country, by Jan 2015, I started paying what i thought were min repayments - however I was paying e50 when I should have been paying e55.
Here's where it gets a bit tricky. I received two letters on Saturday May 16th, one dated May 5th, the other May 12th. The letter dated May 5th was the first correspondence I received from the bank about the arrears, despite the fact that I had phoned recently for various reasons (including to cancel my credit card after a burglary). the letters were delayed presumably because they were going overseas. The bank hadn't changed the records of my new number and were not able to contact me about the arrears by phone because of this (someone in customer care said they had tried to contact me via phone, but had the wrong (not updated) number).
In the end, they cancelled my card and gave my a bad credit rating/grade despite my offering to pay off the whole amount.
I am now in the process of moving home and realizing that this bad rating will affect my ability to get a mortgage and probably other things. Should I speak to a solicitor about getting the debt expunged? Do I have a leg to stand on? I feel the fact that the letters came late and the mess-up with the phone number on their part could stand to me?
Any advice would be massively appreciated. The irony is, I can't even open a saving account with this bank now to transfer a large lump sum of savings because of this incident.
