Oh My God

witches_cauldron

:eek:

Just scrutinized my credit reports and I see that in the past 12 months I have:

24 credit searches on Experian
21 credit searches on Equifax
(2 credit searches on Callcredit)

So basically that's my credit totally down the toilet then!?!?

Almost all of these searches were done between 4 and 6 months ago. I had a blitz of applications, before I'd read this forum and learned better! I had no idea credit searches were hugely detrimental to your credit file and I thought that as long as you paid all your bills on time and got on the Electoral Roll, you'd have good credit!

What on earth can I do?

Bizarrely I actually got approved for an o2 contract in June (they must have seen all these searches, surely?!) and also managed to pass a credit check for a rented property and get a £350 credit limit with Littlewoods. I guess companies like that just don't care if you've got a ludicrous amount of searches??

Aside from the searches, my reports show 3 different credit accounts with a string of zeroes (ie paid on time) and no adverse.

tictax

Have you been looking to buy car insurance recently? That also genrates searches but are not recorded on the credit file that lenders see.

Unless you are looking to borrow more money there is nothing to worry about. the searches will drop off gradually and different lenders have different attitudes to previous searches.

Sammy_Girl

Hi Witches,

Are all of these searches actually recorded enquiries? There may well be some searches that are classed as "unrecorded enquiries" which mean that you can see them, but lenders can't. Unrecorded Enquiries don't affect your rating whatsoever. The fact that you have recently been accepted for credit is a good thing

Also, are you on the elctoral roll, as that helps immensely.

witches_cauldron

the ones I've listed are the recorded searches!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

witches_cauldron

Sammy_Girl wrote: »

Also, are you on the elctoral roll, as that helps immensely.

Yes I am

Sammy_Girl

I think, the best thing to do now is to sit tight and not to apply for more credit. Each search will drop off after 12 months. I think a satisfactory number of searches at any one time is 3-6. If you can get them to this amount and make sure that every payment is made on time every time, then this time next year you will have a very good score indeed.

Moggles_2

Absolutely. I wouldn't lose sleep over this. Worse things can happen quite honestly.

Credit checks appear on your credit file more or less in realtime. Anyone who searches your file subsequently will see each credit check until it drops off your file 12 months later. As most of yours occurred between 4 and 6 months ago, they'll have disappeared in 8 months time. The effect is only temporary.

It would be sensible to leave applications for credit well alone for a bit though