Consumer complaint received 2021-10-08
Company: BARCLAYS BANK DELAWARE
State: PA
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Incorrect information on your report
Sub-issue: Account information incorrect

Complaint:
I am writing to report that one of my financial instutues- Barclay US, has wrongfully submitted information to the credit bureaus that negatively impacted my credit score. Multiple attempts and proofs that this is not correct have been submitted to them but they have not changed their position. 

Background : I have been using my checking account ( XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX  XXXX XXXX ) to pay for one of my credit cards ( Barclay US ) the past few months. There was an issue back in XXXX, in which I submitted a payment as I always have ; For some reason, it came back as " UNABLE TO LOCATE EXTERNAL ''. I did not get any notification after this event so I did not check back until a month later, at which point Barclay has flagged that I had an ammount past due for 30 days+. This has resulted in a significant drop in my credit score. 

I tried to reach out to Barclay about why it could not locate XXXX for payment. I attempted to do so but the customer service could not give me a reason, and just kept telling me to give them the full routing and account number ( which I have already done in the past ). Barclay refused to change their standing with the credit bureau on this specific report after multiple attempts. 

I have proof that the amount was initiated via transactions in Barclay. I sent those to XXXX and they agreed that the issue seems to be a technical one from Barclay, and not from XXXX or from me not starting the transaction. The below portion is from XXXX, I could provide the full email I got from them : " Hello XXXX, Thank you for your reply! 
I contacted our ACH Department for you in regards to your inquiry, as they handle all incoming and outgoing ACH transfers, deposits, and payments, and can search transactions according to amount, date, and account number to see if they were received at XXXX, why they may have been rejected, and so forth. 
Thanks to you providing a screenshot of your Barclay Card showing your attempted payment to Barclay for {$36.00} on XX/XX/2021, our XXXX Department searched throughout the entire month of XX/XX/2021 for that amount, or any ACH transactions that were connected to your account. No transactions for {$36.00} were requested or received by XXXX XXXX  XXXX XXXX whatsoever from Barclay to your account. 
Even if Barclay had entered in the wrong account number for you somehow ( despite all your previous transactions to Barclay in the past going through- they have used your correct MICR number in the past, so there is no reason for us to suspect they used the wrong routing or MICR number now as you did not change that information ), XXXX would still have received that request, and would be able to see if we had denied it as well. 
Since there was no record of this transaction request within our ACH Department at all, the payment request was most likely never actually sent by Barclay to XXXX. This conclusion is further supported by the fact that, according to the screenshot you provided, you initiated the payment to Barclay for {$36.00} on XX/XX/2021 where it says Payment Received, but then on the same day, XX/XX/2021, it says Unable to Locate External Account. 
XX/XX/2021 was a Saturday. As all ACH transactions must be sent from the original institution ( Barclay ) to the Federal Reserve before they are sent on to their receiving institution ( in this case, XXXX ), and the Federal Reserve is closed on Saturdays without exception, XXXX would not have even been able to send notice back to Barclay of any rejection or account not found until Monday XX/XX/2021 at the absolute earliest. The fact that you initiated a payment with Barclay on Saturday XX/XX/2021, and the payment was rejected on the very same day, means that it could not possibly have been sent to XXXX for review at all. 

While we can not speak on behalf of Barclay, our ACH Department suggested that Barclay could have had a system error at that time that caused the payment to never have been sent, or some similar issue. It may be worth inquiring about with Barclay. 

I do sympathize with you that this has happened, and I wish there was more on our end that we could do for you. At the very least, I am glad to be able to verify with our ACH Department that XXXX never received the payment request in the first place, and that as the payment request was both requested and denied by Barclay on Saturday XX/XX/2021, it would have been impossible for XXXX to have received the payment as the Federal Reserve was closed. Hopefully this confirmation assists you with any future conversations or inquiries you have with Barclay! '' I am hoping that you could help them realize that this technical issue causes an unfair reporting on my account. Please also take into account that they are aware that my use for their card is very minimal : thirty some dollars a month to keep the account open so I can maintain a healthy credit utilization ratio. I manage thousands of dollars of credit in my name every month and I manage them well. 

Thanks for your time and consideration.

Company public response: Company has responded to the consumer and the CFPB and chooses not to provide a public response
Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation