Credit file on the cheap

nillod

hi dan.very helpful post. can you advise me i checked my credit report recently and was amazed to find an 8 on it! it related to a debt i didnt know i had with barclays. they made no attempts to contact me about the debt first (in 6 years). they took the debt from woolwich. the first i knew about tit was when a DCA contacted me asking me for payment. do you know if i can get the 8 removed as there was no previous efforts to contact me. my credit score is otherwise clear. i'm mortified as i'm a single parent and am wanting to move house next year so will need a new mortgage and am worried that i'll be stuck for 6 years!!

Tixy

The online service is £5.99/month to access all the time. But on here its recommended you sign up for the free 30 day trial and then cancel before you start getting charged.

(I confess I paid for a couple of months before I actually cancelled mine when I originally did it).

I'd agree that spending £5.99 every month is expensive and probably unnecessary and hopefully most people would not need to check it anything like that often.

Tixy

Nillod - has this debt suddenly appeared and if so does it show a default date? They (DCA or creditor) are not allowed to suddenly put a default on years after you actually defaulted. If the default date is nearly 6years ago it will drop off soon anyway.

Have you now paid the debt? If not you might want to consider/look into whether the debt could be statute barred.

danthemoneysavingman

nillod wrote: »

hi dan.very helpful post. can you advise me i checked my credit report recently and was amazed to find an 8 on it! it related to a debt i didnt know i had with barclays. they made no attempts to contact me about the debt first (in 6 years). they took the debt from woolwich. the first i knew about tit was when a DCA contacted me asking me for payment. do you know if i can get the 8 removed as there was no previous efforts to contact me. my credit score is otherwise clear. i'm mortified as i'm a single parent and am wanting to move house next year so will need a new mortgage and am worried that i'll be stuck for 6 years!!

Barclays bought Woolwich, hence why it was with them. I'm no collections expert, but there are many forums about the 6 year delay thing (or is it 7) whereby the debt becomes unenforcable - check into this yourself online - as I imply, I'm not 100% on this. There should be advice on how to deal with your situation on these forums/boards.
Indeed, a CAIS 8/9 is considered a write-off and banks would be very wary about lending to you with one of these. This may depend on size of debt. If due process hasn't been followed, you would be entitled to have this removed from your file. Once again, I urge you to investigate this yourself. Best of luck!