Credit reports and the living-in serviceman...

TomJ

AS I hope we're all well aware, credit checking agencies collate various bits of public domain gen on us to put into their reports, 'pon which finance companies base their decisions whether or not to offer us their products. One field is your electoral roll status; are you on it or not? Always seemed a bit daft to me, but them's the rules of the game, so we need to play along and get registered at the address we intend to use whenever posted as soon as possible.

However, the way we format our address and the way the chap at the registration office enters it onto their system may not be the same. I've recently discovered that Experian thought I wasn't registered because the council had

Flt Lt TomJ
Royal Air Force Binbrook
The Officers Mess
etc

on the roll, rather than

Flt Lt TomJ
The Officers' Mess
RAF Binbrook
etc

Having contacted Experian online to point out the snag, a nice seeming lass called Kate has emailled me back to say, in effect, good spot, we'll sort that, give it a week to filter throught the system. I thought it worth a post here to give all and sundry a heads up that even fairly simple (to us) mil addresses can confuse data entry types and thus the various computers that process gen on us; make sure you check for this sort of error before any significant fiancial application.

More gen on credit reports, including how to check 'em, at http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/credit-rating-credit-score

davilown

Tbh, I've always had our names on the electoral roll and never had any of the 'associated' problems with getting credit when required. I suppose it helps that when we do, we tend to pay it back!

MoneyHoney

A v useful heads up.

Also, when any loan etc is payed off request/keep the invoices and letters stating this (usually along the lines of 'thank you for your custom, would you now like a further loan/credit?'). These letters can prove invaluable when returning from a posting/s abroad ~ those instances when returning to UK sometimes requires a proof of previous existence :rolleyes:

We always pay everything off with no probs but it didn't avoid a few hideous situations when we returned from abroad. Thankfully keeping the above letters solved a few problems.

*RAF Binbrook, now that's some time ago. Provided great disruption of our school assemblies