Not upheld: credit file reporting and alleged misleading information about duration of payment arrangement reporting complaint against Barclays Bank UK PLC trading as Barclaycard

Decision detail

Summary

Ms A complained that Barclaycard misled her about how long information regarding her payment arrangement would remain on her credit file. Ms A claimed she was told the information would be removed six years after the arrangement was agreed in January 2019, but Barclaycard reported it would remain until November 2027 (six years from when the account closed in November 2021). Due to the passage of time, call recordings and contact notes were unavailable. The ombudsman found it most likely that Barclaycard's standard practice was to report payment arrangement information for six years from the date each payment was made, not from the initial arrangement date, and that multiple staff members would not have made the same error. The complaint was not upheld.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman applied the balance of probabilities test due to limited evidence from the passage of time. The ombudsman noted that Barclaycard's confirmation letter did not specifically state the duration of reporting but reasonably concluded that information about each payment made under an arrangement would be recorded for six years from the date it was made. The ombudsman found it unlikely that multiple staff members across different interactions would have made the same mistake in advising Ms A, and concluded it was most likely they would have advised that payments would be reported for six years from the date they were made, not from the initial arrangement date.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website