A few questions about credit reports

GRM

Another newbie who wishes to say thanks for all the excellent advice on here.

I've received my £2 reports from Equifax and Experian.

1. Does having large credit limits on settled credit cards affect in any way your ability to gain additional credit in the future? For example, I have a Co-Op credit card on my file (which I have no recollection of owning....) that was settled in Nov 06. Is it worthwhile or even possible to reduce the significant credit limit shown for this card? I'm assuming not but thought I'd ask.

2. Two "Settled/Partial" entries for credit cards from Feb 09 that between them only had one '1' overdue month in the previous 36 months. They both accepted F&F settlements of roughly 38%. A horrific blemish that will curse my credit worthiness for another 4.5 years or something that will just knock me down a notch or two in the 'getting the best credit offers' stakes?

3. A default from Egg CC for £14500 from Jan 09. Do I just give up on applying for credit until Jan 15? This doesn't show up on Experian, only Equifax. If I wanted to apply for credit are there lenders who are known to use just Experian or is this idea a non-starter?

4. I don't see any mention of a credit score? Should there be? Does it matter?

Thanks in advance.

davidjwest

I can't answer all the questions but to number 1, yes it does matter. If you have a lot of credit available to you some lenders may be put off by this, depends how strict they are. At the moment with the current economic climate, lenders are being stricter. I'd ask for the limits to be reduced and close any cards you don't need.

GRM

I'm assuming I closed the account in 2006 - that's the date of the last update by the Co-Op. Would they be expecting ex-customers to call and ask for the credit limit on their closed account to be reduced? Maybe the moral of this story is to drastically reduce the credit limit _before_ you close a cc account?

Same question goes for the cards who accepted partial settlements and Egg who defaulted. Would they really go out of their way to reduce the credit limits on these accounts?

danothy

In answer to question 4: no, the £2 statutory reports just show what information is held on you, and no it doesn't matter, lenders do their own scoring based on the information you give when you apply and based on the contents of that report you received and no two use the same method. The credit expert score is supposed to be indicative of what a typical lender would score you at, but has no real meaning, and some here would say it's a bit of a con.

In my opinion you're better off finding out what information lenders value and checking your report for that rather than relying on an indicator:
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/loans/credit-rating-credit-score

ceh209

1. Large limit on closed card = good. shows you handled credit well.
Large limit on open card = bad. shows you have lots of available credit, so why do you need more now.

The limit on the closed card was a matter of fact, so can't be changed now.

2. Advice on F&F settlements is to get them to agree to show it as settled on your credit report. did they agree to this? If not, nothing you can do.

3. Is the default fair i.e. did you really default etc? can you settle it now? Settled defaults look better than unsettled, but still, not much chance of getting anything for at least 3 years (so Jan 12)

4. No, not unless you pay for it. Don't - it won't tell you anything your credit report doesn't already.

frankiew13

Hi, I'm not sure if this is the right place or not. I've searched the forum but couldn't find the info I'm looking for.

My brother has got credit reports from Equifax and CallCredit and is waiting for his experian report. He is 5+ payday loans and some other debt with DCAs. On the callcredit report only 3 of the payday loans appear and not all the DCAs who are supposedly chasing his debt. Is this normal? I assumed all payday loans would appear and would have been helpful so could have got full figures on what he owes.

Thanks for your help
Frankie

Experian_company_representative

If any of your brother's payday loans don't appear it's probably only a matter of time before they do. The credit reference agencies have different processes for signing up new lenders and testing new data and the payday loan industry is still a relatively new sector.

As someone else has said, there's no need to worry about credit limits on settled accounts.

James