Credit Rating: How it works and How to improve it discussion area

oridley

I just found out that my credit card company gave me a black mark on my credit report for missing a payment. I made the payment on their website with a debit card a couple of days before the due date but they claimed the payment didnt reach them in time (and they say allow a few working days on their site). This seems massively unfair - do I have any opportunity to get this cancelled, and whats the best way to go about it?

izools

cheshirepirate wrote: »

Not according to Checkmyfile website



Any suggestions?

Checkmyfile are ABSOLUTELY DIRE.

Do NOT pay any attention to what they have to say. I've seen what they print - they say you need searches on your file to appear as "Credit active" and having none damages your score.

This is ABSOLUTE ROLLOX and must NOT be trusted!

EVERY SINGLE search you have lowers your score a little. One or two in six months, fine. Three or for, pushing it. Five +, pretty much garunteeing you won't get approved for anything.

Please save yourself from damaging your score and cancel your subscription with those shysters!

izools

oridley wrote: »

I just found out that my credit card company gave me a black mark on my credit report for missing a payment. I made the payment on their website with a debit card a couple of days before the due date but they claimed the payment didnt reach them in time (and they say allow a few working days on their site). This seems massively unfair - do I have any opportunity to get this cancelled, and whats the best way to go about it?

They will have made you aware in the terms of the account that you must allow x working days before they payment due date for payment to reach them.

It can take 3-4 working days to process a debit card payment, if you paid 2 working days before the due date, it would have been late.

Unfortunately all you can do is plead with tail between legs and hope they will be nice, but remember they have absolutely no obligation to remove the missed payment marker.

Just don't do it again

cheshirepirate

izools wrote: »

Checkmyfile are ABSOLUTELY DIRE.

Do NOT pay any attention to what they have to say. I've seen what they print - they say you need searches on your file to appear as "Credit active" and having none damages your score.

This is ABSOLUTE ROLLOX and must NOT be trusted!

EVERY SINGLE search you have lowers your score a little. One or two in six months, fine. Three or for, pushing it. Five +, pretty much garunteeing you won't get approved for anything.

Please save yourself from damaging your score and cancel your subscription with those shysters!

Thanks for the info

Is there any decent credit monitering sites you can recommend?

izools

cheshirepirate wrote: »

Thanks for the info

Is there any decent credit monitering sites you can recommend?

Experian Credit Expert and Equifax Credit Watch.

Go straight to the source - don't use 3rd party credit monitoring companies

cheshirepirate

izools wrote: »

Experian Credit Expert and Equifax Credit Watch.

Go straight to the source - don't use 3rd party credit monitoring companies

Nice one

Thanks Izools :T

izools

cheshirepirate wrote: »

Nice one

Thanks Izools :T

Happy to help! And especially happy that you've not scuppered your chances of getting decent credit by applying willy-nilly

keiran

Hi all
I wanted to vent about CRA's and see if folk had any suggestions, and to give a suggestion for easy, minimal cost of accessing yearly reports


1) To check yearly credit reports
I get 2 free reports annually of my Equifax files by virtue of having a CapitalOne credit card
I signed up to annualcreditreport.co.uk for a one off fee of £2.50 - This uses Callcredit and gives yearly online reports
Every year I do an application for a £2 report from Experian



2) I began checking my reports some years ago
I checked all 3 of my credit files (Experian "CreditExpert" - not!!!, Equifax and Callcredit)



I should state at the outset that I am a very financially astute, responsible person, who has never had a missed/late payment and who is wealthy.
I was amazed at the amount of distorted, incorrect, out-of-date and missing information.
Experian were by far and away the worst, Equifax bad but less so whereas Callcredit were more or less spot on, with "only" 3 minor errors



These are just some of the numerous errors:-
1)There was an "association" with my brother, based on his being an additional card holder 10 yrs ago



2)As I have lived in flats, their systems seem unable to cope with a flat number, house number and house name and they showed me as not being on the Electoral Roll



3) Experian had 70-odd "linked addresses", all being my current and 2 previous addresses, with various minor variations, and often confusing the flat and house numbers.

Importantly, I would only ever have provided the correct address to all parties, as used by Royal Mail and the Electoral Roll

These "links" would be provided by lenders, falsely

Lenders looking at the report may think I was using false variations of my address in applications



4) Accounts that were active at my present address showed under previous addresses and vice versa



5) Equifax states it includes Land registry info, but did not show my house purchase



6) I disputed many, many entries, which took ages to sort out. Answers were frequently inconsistent.

They would say my Notice of Correction would be applied, but on checking I would find it had not been .



7) I corrected an incorrect spelling of my name on my reports for a Barclaycard account (bizarrely all the statements and correspondence from Barclays had always showed the right details - otherwise I would of course have changed the details at source!), and they then listed the old, incorrect name spelling as an alias!!!


8) They would say an entry had been updated after a query, and I would discover later on checking that it hadn't



9) ID searches by a lender would show as a credit search



10) One company managed to undertake 6 separate searches, using a variety of corruptions of my real address (which was, of course, the only one that had supplied.


I could go on but you get the idea



The issues are made more difficult as you are aware that you are dealing with junior, poorly trained, motivated and transient staff who understand considerably less of the issues than you do



The CRAs have a blanket policy of not paying any compensation, stating it is the fault of lenders, and lenders saying it's the CRAs' fault



Their regulator is the Information Commissioner, who has no power to award compensation and is a toothless regulator. If you have an issue , you have to deal with it first through the CRA, and then repeat all the information/make your case again with the IC, FOR EACH AND EVERY ITEM of disputed info



I personally think that the conduct and regulation of these CRAs is a national scandal. They are responsible for dealing with confidential and sensitive personal data, which ought to require the most meticulous standards. They fail miserably.



And if I have had these problems with my personal info, how much more difficult and incorrect must it be for those who do actually have credit problems?



I'd happily nuke these organisations but nowadays one daren't make any such comment like this in case the police take it seriously ( while not tracking down real criminals)



I have previously written in to Working Lunch and Watchdog, suggesting that an exploration of these CRA(p)s would be good investigative journalism. No reply
Does MSE want to have a go?






3) I am in the extremely fortunate position of having given up high level paid employment 4 years ago ( at age 40!)


I have now found that acquiring any credit is impossible as the credit scoring systems seem to throw me out straight away
It means I must hang onto my crop of credit cards and currents accounts which I do hold



While I can see that being employed may be favourable, surely it is true that one could be sacked the next day, and that one's considerable assets ought to give lenders confidence in one's ability to pay in future ( not to mention one's impeccable past history of repayments)




I truly despair as to how lenders and CRAs carry on
Of course they have been guilty of seriously irresponsible lending in the past. So while it seems they are happy to dish out credit to unworthy people, they won't to those worthy
They must have some brilliant systems and personnel !!

izools

This is an excellent piece. It should be published

Loueze245

Thanks for taking the time to have a read of this - I'm very new to credit cards and finally built up the nerve to apply for one this morning as a bid to ironically try and help with my credit score so that I would one day be able to apply for a mortgage.....

Turns out it's done the opposite as I have been rejected when applying for the Tesco Credit card. Prior to applying I checked my credit report with Experian and felt confident it would go ok.....


things worth mentioning on report:

• 4 search records from car insurance searches (would this be too high?)
• 5 address records (student rented homes and family house move = high number)
• My previous credit accounts are both settled so no problem there.
• Electoral role - correct and upto date
• No other records - sparkly clear!

things worth knowing are that I'm currently in my overdraft with Graduate account HSBC so wondered if this would affect my score. I'm also earning approx £900 take home p.m - is this too low?

On my application I stupidly entered the incorrect address dates - missing out one that I lived at for a short period, thinking it was insignificant but am really worried due to this oversight I've scuppered my chance at getting this card AND having a rejection for a credit card on my record


I would really really appreciate some advice on sorting this, why I'm likely to have been rejected and how badly this would ever impact on ever securing a mortgage/arranging direct debit payments in the future.


Thank you all!!! Love this site!! x:j