Default question?

sproggi

Hi,

Just received my report from Equifax and it is showing a default recorded on my old O2 account The default was for £25 in May 2003 and Equifax says it shows as being settled 3 weeks later.

Now I am lucky enough to never have had a default before and as far as I knew, still didn't have any, so I am totally at a loss as to the process. Shouldn't they have let me know? I cannot believe that they can just do this to my account and not warn me!

I always paid them and only cancelled my contract with them when they decided to send me a bill for nearly £300 a month:eek: I phoned them and queiried it as according to them, I had been texting at the rate of 4 or 5 texts per minute for about an hour The bloke on the phone said that it was probably an error in their system and I agreed to paying hald the bill. A few weeks later I spent 15 minutes on the (home) phone trying to convince the bloke that I wanted to cancel my account. He finally agreed and sent me a PAYG sim card. As far as I knew, that was the end of it, Until now.

Can anyone please explain the default process so that I have all the info before phoning them and letting rip.

Sproggi

file_wizzard

Difficult one with Mobile phones, Under s.89 of the Consumer credit act the creditor is lawfully obliged to notify you of any default, explain the reasons why you are in default and give you a “reasonable” amount of time to resolve the issue.

However Mobile Phone contracts are not directly governed by the CCA and are normally just a simple form of contract, therefore the CCA is not applicable.

Nonetheless in this case I would in the first instance write to the creditor asking them to verify the data they have submitted, and also write to Equifax and raise a notice of dispute R.e the data being published.

The data controller ( 02 in this case) will have 28 days to respond to the Credit reference agency, if they fail to respond, or can not validate the data they are publishing then it will be removed.

When you write directly to O2 and raise a complaint, they again will have 28 days to reply, if they don’t reply, or you are not satisfied with the response then you will need to escalate to either trading standards, or the Information Commissioners Office if they fail to proved the requested information within 40 days

sproggi

Thank you for your advice File_wizzard, I will get onto it straight away.

It is really worrying if these companies can get away with this sort of thing, it could be affecting peoples credit rating and they wouldn't even know about it!

Sproggi

sproggi

Quick update:

Phoned O2 (using an 0800 number, refuse to pay 50ppm) and when I finally got transferred to the right department, the bloke on the phone was very helpful. He listened to my complaint and then contacted the finance dept. for me to raise the issue with them. After listening to the annoying O2 theme for 5 mins, he returned to say that what they think happened was that I had made a payment and then cancelled my contract before the payment had gone through their system. The resault was a default on the account and payment showing 3 weeks later.
He has promised to email the right dept. to get default removed as it was their fault and will phone me back when it is done.

Sproggi

file_wizzard

sproggi wrote:

Quick update:

Phoned O2 (using an 0800 number, refuse to pay 50ppm) and when I finally got transferred to the right department, the bloke on the phone was very helpful. He listened to my complaint and then contacted the finance dept. for me to raise the issue with them. After listening to the annoying O2 theme for 5 mins, he returned to say that what they think happened was that I had made a payment and then cancelled my contract before the payment had gone through their system. The resault was a default on the account and payment showing 3 weeks later.
He has promised to email the right dept. to get default removed as it was their fault and will phone me back when it is done.

Sproggi

Well done!, i had 20mins of that dam tune last week and was ready to kill on the slightest hint of it again !

sproggi

Update:

Well, 2 weeks after promising to remove the default off of my file, it still sat there, so I filed a dispute with Equifax:mad:

Today I checked to see whether any progress had been made and found that O2 had responded:

'Default due to credit balance loading as outstanding, default removed'

:T :T

It is actually quite worrying that:

a) They could make this type of mistake without it being picked up. It makes you wonder how many others there are.

&

b) Companies like this can register defaults on your account without you knowing anything about it. I only found out when I sent for my credit file 3 years later.

The moral of this is CHECK YOUR CREDIT FILES, there could be more on there than you think.

Sproggi