I Need Consumer Revenge

System

---lee--- wrote:

Removal of these is pretty certain as HFC assured me back in Feb that they would be removed, so I guess this is just the latest in a series of errors. Maybe I'm just unlucky :rolleyes:

My own initial experience of HFC, Birmingham - when I had to arrange token payments on my Marbles card - was that they were helpful and friendly. This soon changed. They took 3 weeks to receive proof of my income (I only sent it 10 miles across B'ham!) and didn't bother to then inform me that the proof was unsuitable. This has resulted in my a/c being sent to solicitors and nearly £600 in charges being added.

If you phone their Litigation Dept and select "Solicitors" you can get the pleasure of being spoken to by the most odious sarcastic condescending excuse for a man you could possibly imagine.

He spoke to me as if I'd just murdered someone.


Can you tell I'm not a fan of HFC?

---lee---

YorkshireBoy wrote:

Lee

Whilst I stand by my earlier posts in that I believe a lot of the grief could have been avoided (and isn't hindsight wonderful?), I now understand that there were extenuating circumstances prevailing at the time.

Best wishes, and I hope it works out for you.

Good luck.

Don’t get me wrong, I do appreciate what you are saying in your posts and I’m not trying to make you out to be the bad guy, picking on poor defenceless old me .

Another point that arises from this is that not everyone has the ability for whatever reason to fight their corner all of the time. Some people don’t have that ability any of the time.

Perhaps a letter or two to the right people at the right time from me could and should have stopped the process. Then again, there’s nothing to say that they would have heeded a letter any more than they did the telephone conversations.

Whatever arrangements are made at the point of sale, I feel it’s only reasonable to expect that they can also be cancelled and any issues resolved from there. I returned 2 or maybe even 3 times to the shop to try and get it sorted.

They only called off the dogs when contacted by senior management from Currys – it also took them a few days of calls to get the message to the right place.

Every time I got a phone call from HFC (or a letter), I did call Currys and try to get some resolution. I should have went in and chained myself to one of their bloody fridges until they sorted it out

I suppose the bit I’m struggling to get to grips with is why when told that there has been an error (repeatedly) can’t they investigate and work to resolve it instead of just trying to extract money that’s not theirs and be so obstructive.

At the time, it’s you against an enormous company with all the resources in the world to chuck at you.

The icing on the cake is that they still damaged my credit record despite their assurances. Admittedly, they are correcting it now (or at least they say they are), but it’s 18 months since they made the entries and I would never have known had I not checked.

---lee---

I'm going to leave this for now and wait and see what reply I get from HFC.

I've also sent off for my credit reports so I can see what correction they have made. Then I'll post back - probably in about a week.

Cheers,

Lee.

PS. Thanks for all your comments.

---lee---

I got a letter from HFC this morning dated 1st December.

It says 'I confirm that I have today instructed the Credit Reference Agencies to show the late payment history on the account to status 'U'. The status 'U' is used to ensure no adverse details have been recorded on the performance of the account.'

Anyone know that status 'U' means please (I can't take their word for it)!

Cheers,

Lee.

YorkshireBoy

---lee--- wrote:

I got a letter from HFC this morning dated 1st December.

It says 'I confirm that I have today instructed the Credit Reference Agencies to show the late payment history on the account to status 'U'. The status 'U' is used to ensure no adverse details have been recorded on the performance of the account.'

Anyone know that status 'U' means please (I can't take their word for it)!

Cheers,

Lee.

Account unused, no payment necessary!!!!!

YorkshireBoy

YorkshireBoy wrote:

Account unused, no payment necessary!!!!!

Or more accurately, from Experian's "Your credit report explained" booklet*...

U - The lender cannot give the account a status code for this month. This may be at the start of the credit agreement when the lender is allowing time for the account to be set up, when you are waiting for goods to be delivered, when you have received the goods but payment is not due to start immediately, when there is a dispute over the payments due or the goods received, or when the account is not being used.

You now have a clean credit history again.

The only thing left to do is to ask them to mark the account as 'settled'.

* Download a copy from here...

http://www.experian.co.uk/consumer/index.html

---lee---

YorkshireBoy wrote:

Or more accurately, from Experian's "Your credit report explained" booklet*...

You now have a clean credit history again.

The only thing left to do is to ask them to mark the account as 'settled'.

* Download a copy from here...

http://www.experian.co.uk/consumer/index.html

Thanks for that.

After reading Martin's tips, I got my credit reports free online from Equifax and Experian a couple of weeks ago on 30 day trail. To make sure I did not end up paying for them, I cancelled them right away (before I forgot and in writing ). Both Experian and Equifax showed the a/c as settled, but with the 1, 2 and 3 months+ arrears.

Hopefully, this means that they have changed all the status entries to 'U' and the accounts will still show as settled, but you never know.

My credit files should arrive through the post in the next week or so and I will be able to check.