Calling all first direct customers!

nearlyrich

I have banked with FD for almost 20 years they have never returned a cheque or charged me for a late payment...

jon_boy75

nearlyrich wrote: »

I have banked with FD for almost 20 years they have never returned a cheque or charged me for a late payment...

thanks

can i just ask, have you EVER had a direct debit or standing order returned unpaid for any reason during that time?

izools

jon_boy75 wrote: »

as they have 'late payment

The point of providing the link is that your interpretation is incorrect.

They do not have the account reported as in arrears or late payment as "1" does not denote those things in regards to a bank account, they denote the account being over its OD limit or having been unable to pay a SO or DD.

If the "1" status was recorded against a credit card, then yes it would denote late but it is recorded against a bank account so it doesn't.

If you can prove that the bank aren't following the rules provided to them by Experian, i.e. reporting a "1" for a month in which no SOs or DDs have bounced nor the OD limit has been breached then yes, they have broken the DPA and you can have the data removed.

This isn't the case however so no breach of DPA has been carried out.

izools wrote: »

What would be interpreted as other creditors as arrears.

They should not do this unless the account is 30 days over an agreed limit continually.

I would make a formal complaint to HSBC / FD, and if they don't remove them, then the FOS and the ICO.

They should not be doing this unless the account has been continually overdrawn / over limit for 30 days on the trot

My post in which I was, at the time, unaware of the rules surrounding the reporting of current account status codes. I was in that instance wrong, and duly corrected.

We all learn :beer:

nearlyrich wrote: »

I have banked with FD for almost 20 years they have never returned a cheque or charged me for a late payment...

I must say in all my years of banking, even during the horrible time during which I lost my house and ended up having to declare myself bankrupt, I never once bounced a cheque, direct debit, or standing order, nor have I been subject to bank charges. It is possible to ensure this never happens but you must be prepared to check your balance daily and cancel anything due to go out that you're not 100% sure you can cover.

jon_boy75

izools wrote: »

The point of providing the link is that your interpretation is incorrect.

They do not have the account reported as in arrears or late payment as "1" does not denote those things in regards to a bank account, they denote the account being over its OD limit or having been unable to pay a SO or DD.

If the "1" status was recorded against a credit card, then yes it would denote late but it is recorded against a bank account so it doesn't.

If you can prove that the bank aren't following the rules provided to them by Experian, i.e. reporting a "1" for a month in which no SOs or DDs have bounced nor the OD limit has been breached then yes, they have broken the DPA and you can have the data removed.

This isn't the case however so no breach of DPA has been carried out.




My post in which I was, at the time, unaware of the rules surrounding the reporting of current account status codes. I was in that instance wrong, and duly corrected.

We all learn :beer:



I must say in all my years of banking, even during the horrible time during which I lost my house and ended up having to declare myself bankrupt, I never once bounced a cheque, direct debit, or standing order, nor have I been subject to bank charges. It is possible to ensure this never happens but you must be prepared to check your balance daily and cancel anything due to go out that you're not 100% sure you can cover.

as i said before, the status that is clearly written next to that months entry says 'late payment' in big bold letters, and the overall status for that account says 'in arrears'. there is no other way of interpreting this information. these small details do make a difference.
i dont care about the number (1), I care about what the actual text says...and as it stands now, it's inaccurate, and therefore a breach

the information commissioner agrees with me, that if that's the status, it's inaccurate. If they want to explicitly state a direct debit was returned, they can do that...and that would not be inaccurate.

jon_boy75

Also, you have to keep in mind that the CRAs are not officially sanctioned financial bodies, or regulators. They're private, money making companies with close links to the banks. Their rules and guidelines are not gold plated, or always legally sound

izools

jon_boy75 wrote: »

as i said before, the status that is clearly written next to that months entry says 'late payment' in big bold letters, and the overall status for that account says 'in arrears'. there is no other way of interpreting this information. these small details do make a difference.
i dont care about the number (1), I care about what the actual text says...and as it stands now, it's inaccurate, and therefore a breach

the information commissioner agrees with me, that if that's the status, it's inaccurate. If they want to explicitly state a direct debit was returned, they can do that...and that would not be inaccurate.

The words "Late Payment" and "In Arrears" are not given to the credit reference agencies, rather they are printed there by the CRAs as a result of First Direct reporting a "1".

The only data FD share is the "1".

In this instance I agree that a breach of DPA may be going on. The CRAs are misinterpreting the "1" from from First Direct and putting inaccurate and misrepresentative data on your credit file.

Not on. I hope you manage to get this sorted out as it is wrong, but remember in this instance First Direct are only sharing the "1", not the text that Equifax / Experian have printed along side it.

jon_boy75

thanks to everyone who has contributed

I will report back with what first direct say (although that's fairly predictable), but also what the ICO and FOS say

J:)

izools

Like I say, you may wish to take this up with the CRAs - as FD just report the "1"... it is Equifax and / or Experian that incorrectly interpret that to mean "Late / In Arrears"...

Good luck :beer:

nearlyrich

jon_boy75 wrote: »

thanks

can i just ask, have you EVER had a direct debit or standing order returned unpaid for any reason during that time?

No I can't think of an occasion when that happened;)

slup_2

When another lender looks at your file, all they see is the '1' - they don't see the descriptive text "Late Payment" or "In Arrears".

These are put on your human readable version of the credit report to make it more understandable.

Surely in this case, the only problem here is that the human readable version is using incorrect terminology?