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I’m not going to lie, I love it when my networth goes up a month. I feel a great sense of pride whenever I see that happen and I like sharing it (even though sometimes, it can seem a bit “boastful”). But you know what? It’s just as important to share times where I messed up. Sometimes, I mess up really bad.
2 Delinquency Reports on my Credit Report
I finally got my credit report in February of this year, and I was pretty happy that I got a cool 767 credit rating. However, even though I got my rating, I didn’t really read everything – because if I did, I would have seen that on one credit card which I closed there were 2 reports of delinquency.
Yikes.
How did this happen?
I closed a credit card that I wasn’t using very much since I was having trouble keeping track of my cards. What I didn’t realize was that even after a credit card is closed, pre-authorized payment will still go through.
I have my credit card statements sent to my parent’s home and I rely on my online banking to keep me up to date. Usually I don’t open the paper statements since I can see it all online. Or so I thought. It turns out that when I closed my account, they closed my online account so I couldn’t see what was going on in my account. I assumed that nothing was going on.
Fast forward several months, and I randomly open a statement – I was in shock that my measly cellphone bill had been racking up interest – and was UNPAID. I called TD to figure out why a payment still went through even after the card was closed and learned my important lesson. I paid off the balance, and kinda hoped it would go away.
Really dumb, right?
Trying to Fix it
I called TD and tried to explain what happened. I also pleaded my case that I have always paid my bills on time, and this was a one-time occurrence with a payment that went through after I closed my card. Their argument was that it wasn’t their fault since they had sent me my statements even though my online account was never updated. They refused to do anything.
Lessons Learned
This happened in 2010, and will be on my record until 2016 (6 years). Live and learn, I guess. Now I am super careful to make sure to update to check the balance is paid off on all my cards, even after a few months of having them closed.
Readers, have you ever done something this stupid? Did you know that pre-authorized payments still go through a credit card even after you close it?
fabulously fru-girl 
Forgot about my credit card bill one month. Ugh. What a stupid mistake. It wasn’t a huge deal, but I felt like a total knob.
Ouch!
I only have one CC, but I don’t like authorising any auto debits from my card or accounts. I pay bills manually, or in the case of rent, set up auto payments – not direct debits, which are controlled/set up by the recipient and not myself.
I have pushed my CC limit too far before – I was leaving it to the last day of the month to pay it, except I think the month rolled over on the 30th instead of the 31st or something silly and I ended up paying interest.
OMG! That is crazy that they can do that to you on a closed credit card!
This reminds me to check my credit report.
Yep, I’ve done something really similar. I used to have a student line of credit through a major bank. I was fed up with them for multiple reasons, so I decided to pay it off in one fell swoop and close the account. The teller calculated how much I needed to make the cheque out for, including the total balance and pending interest charges. I made out a cheque for the exact amount, closed the account, handed back my debit card and left. It turns out she had calculated it wrong, and about $24 was left owing on my account without my knowledge. This sat on there for months without my knowing, with delinquency marks going on my credit report. I pulled my credit history when I started looking at houses and found the marks on my report. Even with a manager at the bank backing me up and sending the necessary paperwork to the reporting agencies to get it straightened out, it still took months to correct.
I did something equally stupid with TD no less. I just had to suck it up even though I am SURE it was their fault.
At least it did not go on for 2 years and you are careful about checking!
Not similar but during a move I lost track of due dates and missed my cc payment. A rep from the company called me days after to tell me my payment was late. After explaining the situation to him he said that if I paid the balance in full, they would not report the occurence. I did just that.
Oh no! It’s an honest mistake though. I haven’t even looked at my closed credit card.. this has made me want to look.
I’ve made tons of financial mistakes! One time, I put a stop payment on something with TD, and I didn’t know that the stop payment only lasted for a small period of time – the company started taking money out of my account again shortly and I didn’t even check it to notice.
I didn’t realize that either. Good to know for the future. I’ve made a lot of dumb mistakes though. Some of them I’m still trying to fix!
On the bright side, your credit rating is still fairly good. Sure, you have two delinquencies, but you’re not gonna be getting MORE credit right now right? It shouldn’t affect your application though. And you only have 4 years left.
I have a student line of credit with RBC and when I get my bonuses I will make a 2-3 thousand dollar payment. Well a couple times I made this big payment and then completely forgot to pay the 4.00 interest charge a week or so later, making their attempt to withdraw the 4 dollars come back as insufficient and going on my credit report. I have learned to just keep 50 dollars in an account specifically for the interest charges on this credit line, since I don’t do the majority of my banking with RBC.
I should take a closer look at my credit report – been a while.
Thanks, everyone, for sharing your mistakes and not making me feel like a complete idiot! 🙂
Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!
Yes, we were transferring accounts sometime ago. I had a standing order from one account to the one I was going to cancel.
Somehow I decided to keep old bank account for a while. How glad I was that it happened, as standing order kept going through for 3 months! The bank lost the order to cancel the transfers!