Finally got the courage.....

festivalgirl73

......to look at my credit report on Experian, thought it was about time I had to look to see how bad it had got, and now I'm a little confused.

I got into rough times after the break up of my marriage,and started trying to sort my debt just over a year ago, I was unable to start an official debt management plan with CCCS or Payplan as I did not have enough surplus income so they advised token payments and negotiating with my creditors myself. I have been doing this for over a year. I have raised the payments when I was able to take more regular overtime on, but am now earning as much as I can get and my situation is unlikely to improve in the next six years, so my question is this;
I am still paying the creditors payments each month but despite this they have registered defaults on my credit report, on there it says that these will be removed after 6 years whether the debt has been paid off or not, so does this mean as long as I continue to pay what I can the default will be removed after 6 years? Once that 6 years is over will the credit report repair itself even if I have not managed to pay off the entire debt? I suppose what I'm asking is if I carry on what I'm doing now will I get a clean slate on my report in 6 years?

Also I have debts that are not listed on my report, is that normal? I am paying them payments and as far as I know they have not been written off or settled, but they do not show on there, should I just be pleased about this?

Not sure whether I'm pleased I had a look or not!

chevalier

Not sure about the first bit, but ref the second bit. Not all creditors use Experien, there is Equifax and another one also, so the missing debts might be on there.

sorry i couldn't be more help
chev

bottleofred

Hi festivalgirl,

Defaults stay on your credit file for a total of 6 years whether you pay them or not before dropping off your credit file. They make it pretty much impossible to get any kind of credit & even a chequebook can be difficult if you've got defaults. Your credit file will be updated after 6 years (although it may not be exactly 6 years due to the time for updating etc) and any defaults will be gone. As Chevalier has suggested, you should also get copies of your credit file from Equifax and I think the other company is called call credit, although someone with more knowledge than me should be along soon to advise on the name of the 3rd credit reference agency.

Good luck

Red

festivalgirl73

Thanks, I've had a little look on this site and found a list of credit referencing agencies and the companies that use them, but I assume that this is with regard to the ones they use if you apply for credit with them, but I would assume that these companies would also use the same credit referencing agencies to register their debtors on?

If this is the case then the companies that the missing debts are owed to according to this list do use experian, so I'm still none the wiser really, it does seem odd that they are not listed on there, maybe I should just not worry about it, but I am curious as to why they don't show on there :think:

Hope this makes sense?!