Hi all, need a little help.

Way back in 2004 my wife needed a car for work, as our credit wasn't great at the time we ended up going with a company called First Response finance.

The interest was horrendous but it was all we could get so we went with it.

As far as I can remember we missed a couple of payment but caught them up over the agreement term (48 months)

8 years ago my wife was promoted and received a company car so she gave her old car to my son.

She was made redundant 2 months ago but was offered a better job with a rival company but had to have her own car.

When she applied for finance she was refused,

i got a copy of her credit file and there is an entry from first response finance detailing 2 late payments.

This was an account opened in 2004 over 48 months and to the best of my knowledge was paid in full.

We have not at any time had any contact from them regarding any outstanding balance,

neither have we heard from any third party (debt collector etc)

I know I need to contact them to dispute this but I was looking for some advice on where i stand.

How can I prove we don't owe them this money?

The file says 2 late payment but the outstanding balance is for more than that.

Is it normal, or even legal for a company to update a credit file for over 10 years with absolutely no activity on the account?

If we had owed money on this account is there not a timescale when they should have put a default on the account?

I would really appreciate any help with this please.

I would expect the inflated balance is due to unlawful penalty charges.

I would again suspect that when you were late

each time they added a penalty fee.

so thus when the 48 monthly payments were completed

there was an outstanding balance of these 2 charges

and since then more and more charges have been added.

the fact that the debt is now statute barred is not necessarily a reason that it should not show either.

so these two late payment markers

what two dates were they registered on?

I can only go back 72 months on the experian site and it is showing 2 months late payments all the way back till then.

Hardly surprising when the agreement started on March 2004 and ended on April 2008.

If there was an outstanding balance why not contact me?

Surely they cannot keep updating an inactive account like that for 10 years?

whilst I poke around on them

can you answer these questions

may seem immaterial but they might dictate how we sort this.

have you moved since taking this out if so when?

did you have any contact with them at all after your final payments was made

[i'e the DD mandate expired at 48mts]?

thanks for your help.

No, I have lived in the same house for 25 years. No, I have had no contact from them at all, I thought I would have gotten the usual offer of re-finance after the agreement ended, but presumed the late payments may have put them off.

just does seem strange.

having read up on them here

they can be tigers

but also fair

it might be an idea to politely write a short letter pointing out a few things and see if they might remove the account totally.

p'haps we can work on that tomorrow.

Thanks. Came home today to find my wife had lodged her concerns with experian and they are looking into it, they say it could take up to 28 days but they aim to get a resolution as soon as possible. Guess we will just need to wait and see how it goes. Thank you very much for your prompt replies, I will let you know how I get on.

not really much point complaining to the CRF' providers

get a letter running to FRF

A quick update,

no reply from Experian yet but I noticed the account has now been removed from her file

, unfortunately after checking elsewhere it is still showing with equifax and call credit etc.

Guess I'll need to fire off a letter to FRF to ask them to remove them all.