Credit Reference Agencies: Bad Experiences

[mephisto]

Hi

 

Does anyone know of a consumer group against the way Credit Agencies have so much power over our lives.

 

I was refused a Contract with T-Mobile for £75/Month. Strange given I own my own Home, have no Morgage, pay my existing credit card at in full at the end of the month, pay ORANGE £35/Month, pay £108/Month for my TV/Phone/Internet, never been overdrawn and have a considerable amount of funds in my current and savings account.

 

T-Mobile told me it was because of my Credit Rating so I paid Equifax £14.95 for a credit listing. I was horrified to find 2 DANGER warnings. One was that a CCJ which had been satisfied over a year ago was on the list for 6 Years! This was a joint CCJ with individidual with whom I was in business. He has not had his Credit File marked satisfied and Equifax told me that I would be finanially accociated with him until he did (for life). Not bad giving that I cannot contol the actions of another individual.

 

The other indicator was a DANGER for CAPITAL ONE, a credit-card company that I used in 2002 but because I changed address and my mail was not forwarded I missed 3 payments. This also will be on for 6 Years.

 

Worse still, my local council had, without my authority, requested a joint credit check on myself and another individual which whom I have no deallings at all. I had then financially associated to this individual without my knowledge. The Coucil did rectify this but unless I have paid for a full credit report I would not have been aware of this fact.

 

I spoke to equifax who I must say treated my like dirt. In particular the way they spoke to me about the CCJ, saying things like "well its your own fault isn't it" and saying that the 6 Year ruling of them holding data on my account for all to see was Law. They also patronised me by using my first name as though I was a schoolboy.

 

Has anyone else had similar experiences and is there anything one can do about the appalling 'Big Brother' and Patronising approach of these credit agancies who are at the end of the day Private Companies.

 

Are my Human Rights being infringed? if anyone can point me to case law I will glading take them to court.

 

 

----- Keep up the fight for Consumer Rights ------

[Leo1]

Equifax had all of my mums credit info on my file as well as my own! When I rang equifax they said it was because we had similar names they thought that we were the same person! Even though there were clearly 2 different birth dates on there! I also had financial associations on my file with people that I had no financial link to, it took me ages to sort my files out. Even now Equifax still cannot differentiate between me and my mum so her details are still on my file and equifax have only added a Notice of Correction to say that we are separate people instead of taking all her details off??

 

It is absolutely ridiculous, this kind stuff is ruining people's lives.

[elsinore]

T-Mobile told me it was because of my Credit Rating so I paid Equifax £14.95 for a credit listing.

 

Hello mephisto.

 

Did you know that you could have obtained your credit report for £2? Each of the CRAs are required by law to provide a report, which is sent to you by post, for £2. This info is not obvious when you visit their websites, but the reason for not highlighting it is very obvious!!

 

It may be that you were anxious to get the info quickly online, hence the£14.95. If so, then fine.

 

You would do well to ask for your credit report from Experian as well. Firstly, the report might differ from Equifax. Secondly, they will send you an explanatory booklet which tells you how to go about correcting errors on your file.

 

They are not infallible of course, but they do rely largely on the info which is provided by the lending institutions.

 

Onwards and upwards

 

Elsinore

[Nightmare4banks]

Hi all!

 

mephisto,I am very sorry to read about your experiences with the CRA..PS!

 

According to the laws:

 

1.A CCJ will not be removed until the 6 years lapse - it will be marked as satisified on the credit file for the remaining 5 years in your case.

 

2.However,you can legally demand that a CCJ be removed if the debt was satisified after one month.Here you would need copies of the "Certificate of Satisfaction" from the Court to pass on to the Credit reference Agencies.

 

3.A CCJ and a Default must be removed after 6 years have lapsed.

 

4.All payment history records must be kept no longer than 3 years on the credit files.

 

Also,

 

a.If the Council have done a credit search without your permission this is a clear breach of the Data Protection Act.I will follow this one up if I were in your shoes by requesting a DPA with the statutory £10 fee.

In my view,you would also get compensation but how much I would not have a clue.Perhaps someone else with more knowledge could shed some light on this.

 

b.You should be able to be dis-associated from anyone that you have not had any financial arrangements.This is normally occurs when you moved into a property and the previous occupiers/tenants/owners had a load of CCJs and Defaults etc.

 

I have also had bad experiences who hasn't?

 

I will give you a very good example -

 

A few years ago I applied for a loan and the person from the company when carrying out the search spelt my name totally differently.When I asked the CRA..P to remove it.I was told that I would have to contact the lender and get its permission to get it removed.To this date,I have not persued this yet.Can you believe such rubbish?

 

I personally would love to see the whole shabby system collapse because the information that is exchanged and placed with the Credit Reference Agencies is rigged with incorrect and misleading information.

 

I feel that if the Data is inaccurate such that it affects lives and getting work etc it would become a violation of one's human rights.However,the European Convention on Human Rights ECHR is to do with the violations of human rights - citizen and the state not private companies.

 

So,I feel we need to lobby and complain/highlight the importance of urgent changes needed to for example statutory bodies and MPs.In order to hopefully get these changes introduced and properly adhered to by both the CRA..PS and the finance companies so that we have better lives for ourselves and future generations.

 

I hope you find this information/suggestions useful.

 

If you need any help,just ask.

 

Keep us posted.

 

All the best!

 

PS Sorry about the rant! But this sort of thing makes my blood boil!

[tom2005]

How do you know who is checking these credit reference agencies ? I recently paid £2 to experian and was surprised tro find that 3 companies had checked my credit file on the same day. On racking my brains I remembered I had got quotes for car insurance on that day. Non of these companies told me they were checking my file and even worse I was not asking for credit, I told all of them I would be paying the full amount in advance. How can we be protected from this form of abuse.

[overcharged_consumer]

How do you know who is checking these credit reference agencies ? I recently paid £2 to experian and was surprised tro find that 3 companies had checked my credit file on the same day. On racking my brains I remembered I had got quotes for car insurance on that day. Non of these companies told me they were checking my file and even worse I was not asking for credit, I told all of them I would be paying the full amount in advance. How can we be protected from this form of abuse.

 

They're probably not checking your credit history, just who you say you are. I also believe that the record of the search isn't visible to other lenders - just you so you can see a record of searches. This should therefore have no effect on your credit rating.

 

Insurers may however carry out a credit search to assess how likely you are to be desperate for cash so they can determine how likely you are to arrange to have your own car stolen etc. However, this is unlikely - the only time they're really likely to do this is if you make a claim and they smell a rat.

 

OC

[thunderpuss2k]

How do you know who is checking these credit reference agencies ? I recently paid £2 to experian and was surprised tro find that 3 companies had checked my credit file on the same day. On racking my brains I remembered I had got quotes for car insurance on that day. Non of these companies told me they were checking my file and even worse I was not asking for credit, I told all of them I would be paying the full amount in advance. How can we be protected from this form of abuse.

 

Not sure about Experian as I'm still working on getting my report (any day now!), but Equifax divide it up into credit searches, and 'other searches'. What category are yours in?

 

I wrote to Equifax, and said:

 

I have not given, at any point, any authorisation for the following searches to be made:'

'Please could you advise why you allowed these aforementioned companies to search my credit information without my express written consent?

 

To which they replied.. (stand by for the usual fob off!)

 

Searches show Credit Lenders that you have made applications for Credit or Services. Searches would not normally be viewed as adverse information. If however there were an unusually large number of searches, this may be interpreted by a Credit Lender as being indicative of over-commitment or maybe even fraud. As not all searches are for lending purposes, the type of company making the enquiry is also shown.

 

We do not have the power to amend this information unless we have received written authorisation to do so from the respective sources, and can only suggest that you contact the company concerned with any further enquiries you may have regarding these details and they will advise you further.

 

We would however adivse that Search information is automatically removed from our records after an expiration period of 1 year.

 

The searches that you have mentioned in your letter are Table 2 searches. This means that the searches were undertaken for purposes other than credit applications.

 

Perhaps Tom, like me, didn't give his permission to the companies to search his records. If so, how did they manage to do it?

[thunderpuss2k]

Any chance one of the mods can merge this with http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=10295 - would make more sense to keep it all in one thread.

[sazz]

I'm having problems with a Littlewoods catalogue account in my name on all my files. I've got a thread about it in General...

 

I reported it to the Police, as advised in the new fangled Home Office ID Theft leaflet that came with my Experian file. As the account wasn't trading, there wasn't an actual criminal offence being committed. I replied to that by saying that there's a £300 liability and a credit search/account persued by Littlewoods without my knowlege or consent, so who did, and surely that's an offence? )Maybe not criminal, but hey, the Home Office want you to report it!)

 

I sent off a section 10. DPA letter to Littlewoods the other day & had confirmation via Royal Snail that it's been delivered, I suppose I'll take it from there...

 

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=4586&highlight=littlewoods

[thunderpuss2k]

Can you post a link to your thread (save me looking through? Thx!)

 

So basically, if I read this right, someone has opened a Littlewoods catalogue account, which shows as not only a credit check but also an active/historic account on your Equifax/Experian/etc files? And it's not actually yours?

 

I'm thinking at this rate we're gonna end up with our own CRA subforum

[tom2005]

thanks for replies. yes I see OC the searches came under 'unrecorded enquiries', according to experian they could have been an identity verification search. I still think they should infrom you when they do this. who runs experian and equifax are they private companies, and does anyone monitor them to make sure they are giving out the correct information ?

[meagain]

Something that scares me, that I've as yet had no satisfactory explanation for, is that by simply having a lender do a credit search will adversely affect your credit score. Why?

[sazz]

Posted the original thread...

 

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=4586&highlight=littlewoods

[thunderpuss2k]

Something that scares me, that I've as yet had no satisfactory explanation for, is that by simply having a lender do a credit search will adversely affect your credit score. Why?

 

Apparently a lender doing a credit search may make it look like you're desperate to get credit somewhere. Lets say if you applied for 10 credit cards in one week. Would look a little abnormal perhaps? There's some very good reasons for this - like shopping around - but I guess the advice is to not apply until you know you want it. Of course you might not know whether you'd be accepted, hence the application - so it's a little catch-22.

[meagain]

That might explain it. I know I've seen cases where someone has been to a bank for a loan and been offered (e.g.) 7%, gone to two other banks and been offered 8%, then when they went back to the first bank to get the better rate told that the offer was no longer valid and the best they could do was 9%.

 

Anyway, let's deal with one unnecessary evil at a time

[thunderpuss2k]

That might explain it. I know I've seen cases where someone has been to a bank for a loan and been offered (e.g.) 7%, gone to two other banks and been offered 8%, then when they went back to the first bank to get the better rate told that the offer was no longer valid and the best they could do was 9%.

 

I can see in that instance that the whole system works against you, as by shopping around on loans you have created a lot of unnecessary checks - as they won't tell you a rate before they've checked your 'circumstances', and therefore run through your file.

 

What a pickle it all is eh? Of course I could always tell you about the letter I got from Equifax the other day asking me to click on a link to issue notices of correction/dispute. Never clicked a link on a letter before - I did wave the mouse over it a few times but nothing happened