Need help with credit report

Bumbelina

I was recently turned down for a Mint card at 0% so applied for my credit files with Equifax and Experian, which have now arrived. They show that I haven't missed any payments, apart from a loan in 2003 on which we made an arrangement to pay for a few month when we got into financial difficulty and then consolidated to pay it off.

I want to apply for the Amex card for life of balance transfer but daren't until I understand why I was turned down for the Mint card, as I am aware that too many applications will affect my credit score.

I have quite a few accounts, mostly with catalogues, which have nothing owing on them but are showing available credit - am I right in thinking that I should close these down? If so, I don't know how as I'm not sure I have the details to contact them. Could I just ask the credit reference agencies to take them off my file, or would they need some kind of authority to do that?

There are also loan accounts which were paid off years ago showing up, and some entries marked unrecorded enquiry - do I need to do anything about those?

I want to put myself in the best possible position before making any more applications, so advice would be much appreciated

Robert_Sterling_3

You missed payments in 2003.
That is "recently" in terms of Credit Cards.
You have quite a few account.
Perhaps you just do not fit the "Mint Profile" of a desired customer.
For some reason I did not meet the "Virgin Profile" when I applied for their card.
I am in fact "Sound as a pound" for loads of money.
However I concede that that would not make much profit from me.
No doubt others will give you more positive advice as to what you should do.
Good Luck.

YorkshireBoy

Your reports may "have arrived", but I suspect you have not read them fully yet - because if you had you would have been able to answer some/all of your questions yourself. Anyway...

Contacting catalogue companies and other lenders.
At the end of the Experian report is a list of 'useful addresses'. Many/all of your lenders should be listed here. If they aren't, then you should contact the CRA's and ask them to provide contact details.

Removing "available credit" from your file.
You need to contact the lenders and ask them to mark your account as "settled" if indeed it is up to date and closed. An Equifax credit history for such a (well run) settled account would then appear thus: S0000000000. If you don't have an 'S' on Equifax, or 'Settled 09/05/03' (for example) on Experian, then the credit is still available to you.

Unrecorded Enquiries
Under the heading "previous searches" on your Experian report is some text. Contained within this text are the words...

Unrecorded enquiries, quotations, identity verification checks and credit report applications are shown on your copy of your report but are not seen by lenders."

Best possible position?
Setting aside the usual employment, banking, address, electoral roll, number of searches, I suspect you have two key issues:

Available credit.
The action here should be to reduce the credit limits on all used credit cards to a safe minimum on which you can manage. Close and mark settled all other credit facilities.

Arrangement to pay.
This will cause you major problems. You haven't just missed a payment or two here. You simply couldn't make a full payment, and so they let you take a payment holiday perhaps? I'm not familiar with arrangements to pay, but are they one down from a default or CCJ? This may make lenders very wary of you, depending on the amounts involved and how long ago they were. Is this particular loan marked as 'settled' now? You may find that you will always be automatically declined for credit cards (at least until six years has passed and it falls off your report), and so will need to appeal to give you the opportunity to speak to a manual underwriter to explain your position.

Useful reading:

1. Your credit reports!
2. "Your credit report explained" (Experian booklet). If you didn't get one with your report, download a copy from http://www.experian.co.uk/consumer/index.html
3. Martin's credit rating article at http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cgi-bin/viewnews.cgi?newsid1101485056,23650,

Bumbelina

Fantastic - thanks for the advice, Yorkshireboy. I now have a place to start!

I did look through all the stuff that came with the credit reports but wanted to sound it out with you wise people on this site on the basis that the advice given here is geared towards me as a consumer - I don't always trust what is contained in "official" documents to be in my best interests and am very wary of falling into any more traps.