any advice welcome

golf554

Hi Folks, just a bit of advice would be great.

I was really in a bad way debt wise (£20k ish) and also bad at remembering to make regular payments to cards etc - had my wake up moment a few months back - but today checked my credit file on credit expert

It rates me as very poor and a score of 520

What is my best way of improving this ( most debt paid off following house sale)

Finally one of the things that confused me is that on my file a couple of organisations have mutiple references (egg and Goldfish) even though I only have 1 account with them - any ideas welcome

buzzmatt

How did you assertain 20grand of debt if you don't mind me asking.

Is a large proportion of this bank and credit card charges & interest???

You can claim back unfair bank charges remember! Have you done this?

e.g. All times bank has charged you for going over your overdraft limit.

golf554

Hi Buzzmat,

Lost control of credit cards really - filled them up and didn't make regular payments

Re claiming back charges am currently in the process of claiming over £1700 of charges from bank of Scotland - i'll be interested to see what they come back with

Janey51

golf554 wrote:

Hi Buzzmat,

Lost control of credit cards really - filled them up and didn't make regular payments

Re claiming back charges am currently in the process of claiming over £1700 of charges from bank of Scotland - i'll be interested to see what they come back with

What a very honest answer!
If you have paid off all your debts, have you also closed all your CC accounts so that no "available credit" will show on your credit file? Did you have any defaults or CCJs?
I'm not an expert on the workings of the credit reference agencies, but I would imagine that any lenders would take the whole picture into consideration when considering you for credit.
But really...and sorry if this is a personal question...why would you want more credit if you have been so honest and admitted you aren't that good at managing any credit you have?

Believe me, I speak from experience. We owe over £84000 due to a combination of life disasters:o and bad money management.

Broken_hearted

I found with our cards if you report one lost they shut down the account and opened a new one up, so we have about five accounts for M&S showing all relating to the same one account.

CLAPTON

how much debt do you still have?

why do you want more debt?

reduce the number of CC you use so you dont 'forget' to pay them on time

set up DD to pay the entire amount off (if possible ) each month; if you can't manage this in the short term then set up a DD to at least pay the minimum but remember always to make additional payments: if you only pay the minimum you will be repaying virtually forever.

if you're never late with payments you credit rating will improve automatically.

golf554

Thanks guys - reason want credit is in the form of a mortgage rather than cc's as will stay away fron these for ever

I did have cards stolen - so this could explain the multiple entries for some cards

HAve now set up dd's for all cards so cant forget - anything else i can do??