Voadafone filed late payments on my credit report

[pjames04]

I had a contact with Vodafone for 12 months. I finished the contract 2 months early. I sent them a letter and also call them to onfim closure of my account. They said to me, we have closed your account and if you have any monies outstanding we will send you a letter but not to worry cos on our screens it doesnt seem like you do. They sent me the last bill on which I paided. Nearly a month and a half down the line they sent me a finally payment demand saying that I had seven days to pay due £7.or they would get a collection company invloved. The letter said as I have ignore te other reminders. The problem was I didnt recieve the reminders and vodafone filed a 2 month late payment on my record . Another incident I had with them is that I couldnt make a payment on time an I said can i pay it in a few weeks, They ageed i could but again they filed a late payment on my record. On both times vodafone agreed that it would not go on my report.

 

I have contacted them and they are looking in to this. If it turn out that they will not remove it what can I do as my credit rating was good until they filed there two late payments.

 

Please Help

Thanks

Paul

[fredbassett]

Did you cancel the direct debit before the final payment could be taken? This is often one of the causes for problems as people cancel the contract and cancel the direct debit too early resulting in the final payment not being taken.

[pjames04]

They said it was fine to cancel this as I paided the last bill. and they said if you owe anymore money they would send me a letter. I recieved no further reply until month and a half down the line. saying that they has sent me reminding to pay and this was the final letter. But I did not recieve them, only the final letter on which i payed the day i recieved this and ask the advisor will it go on my credit on which they advised this wouldnt

[fredbassett]

You have to give 30 days notice so would still have your final bill to pay for call charges up to the point of disconnection. Did you move address at all as usually collections letters would be sent out advising of the balance. Which department have you spoken to at vodafone and what did they advise you?

[yaffsimone1]

Have you asked them what the 7.00 is for, a final bill means exactly that its final no more money to pay.

[buzby]

Have you asked them what the 7.00 is for, a final bill means exactly that its final no more money to pay.

 

Actually it doesn't. Charges for services supplied but not billed can take up to 4 months to arrive, especially if roamed calls or texts were made. The final bill only reflects charges known at the time of compilation, it usually will NOT include line rental as this is paid in advance.

[buzby]

Vodafone would not agree to a waiver of noting payment dates on your credit file. If you pay late, they'll saay 'fine' but still note the date or how late it was paid. This is because this is a statemet of fact supplied by them, it cannot show you paid on time when you didn't. In cases like these where you advice of delaed payment it usually means they will not place a default on the account because of the delay, and it appears the didn't.

[pjames04]

It was for the service the £&. I have spoke to them and they are going to take these late payments off my credit record. Should I claim money for them messsing my rating up for a loan?

[fredbassett]

If it was done as a gesture of goodwill i.e. previous good payment history/long term customer or they believed it was a genuine oversight rather than a no intent to pay and they stated it was with no admission of liability on their part then you wouldn't get very far if you tried to claim. What exactly would you be claiming for? The onus would be on you to prove any financial loss. You would also have to prove that it was purely the Vodafone late payments that stopped you getting the loan. Lenders don't usually worry too much about the odd late payment therefore can you be 100% sure that you have no other late payments on your credit file as Vodafone could ask for your credit file to be produced as part of their defence.

[buzby]

Also, information of your file is not deemed to be 'public' therefore no claim for defamation would succeed, and if another financial house declined you, that would be their decision based on their profiling, you couldn't assert the sole reason for rejection was because of the credit reference report - I'd suspect they'd not entertain the idea - just think how many folk could be in the same boat!

[sickn0te]

With regards the late payment entry on your credit file - Vodafone (and anyone else who is bound by the consumer credit act) is legally obliged to provide information of that nature.

Now, if there has been a breakdown of communication between the service provider and yourself [and you have done everything you could do to reasonably resolve the issue] then the service provider [Vodafone] can if they choose to; update the information already entered to reflect that the entry was not valid.

 

More often than not people have detrimental entries made because they have less than co-operative with the service provider in managing their account.

[buzby]

With regards the late payment entry on your credit file - Vodafone (and anyone else who is bound by the consumer credit act) is legally obliged to provide information of that nature.

 

Where should we start? Firstly, Vodafone is not bound by the CCA as they do not provide credit. So they are not 'bound' to provide this information relevant to late payments. In fact, there is NOTHING that I am aware of in the CCA that automatically provides any authority to provide a customers credit record to a reference agency. This has to be covered within the firms terms and conditions, and it is THIS that enables Vodafone to disclose details of how the customer pays their bills, not the CCA.

 

Now, if there has been a breakdown of communication between the service provider and yourself [and you have done everything you could do to reasonably resolve the issue] then the service provider [Vodafone] can if they choose to; update the information already entered to reflect that the entry was not valid.

 

More often than not people have detrimental entries made because they have less than co-operative with the service provider in managing their account.

 

I'm afraid a 'breakdown of communication' is not a reason for removal of information entered on to a consumers credit file, it has to be inaccurate. Therefore the data is not updated to reflect the inaccuracy, it is removed if a fabrication or corrected to reflect the true situation - this is a requirement laid down by the Data Protection Act.

[sickn0te]

Where should we start? Firstly, Vodafone is not bound by the CCA as they do not provide credit. So they are not 'bound' to provide this information relevant to late payments. In fact, there is NOTHING that I am aware of in the CCA that automatically provides any authority to provide a customers credit record to a reference agency. This has to be covered within the firms terms and conditions, and it is THIS that enables Vodafone to disclose details of how the customer pays their bills, not the CCA.

 

 

 

I'm afraid a 'breakdown of communication' is not a reason for removal of information entered on to a consumers credit file, it has to be inaccurate. Therefore the data is not updated to reflect the inaccuracy, it is removed if a fabrication or corrected to reflect the true situation - this is a requirement laid down by the Data Protection Act.

 

 

Thankyou. My use of Engligh was not entirely correct in my post (English being my second language).

 

What I meant to say it that anyone bound by a CCA & Vodafone (who are not) are obliged to provide information to credit reference agencies on how you conduct your account. You will find this in the T&C's provided by Voda.

 

When I say 'breakdown of communicaton' I mean that you have been sold a bag of nonsence from the CS team and as a result a bad entry has been made. This of course can by agrued that the information is not correct, simple fact and should be removed.

[buzby]

Your English is pretty good - it is just the fine details that can mislead! It is however safe to say that any consumer has a right to keep his financial affairs private and NOT have them shared with third parties.

 

The problem is that firms want to have an inside track in knowing how the customer may conduct themselves, so in exchange for receiving this information from CRA's, they have to agree to providing information on their customers to the same database. Because of this, consumers are being forced to release their information because it is already in the small print, and there is no mandated 'opt out', which I feel is an apalling omission!