8 searches for one application!

eastlondongal

:eek:
Hi all,

this forum has been invaluable for me lately, so thanks for your helpful advice in advance!
I applied for a mortgage with the Halifax at the end of November 06 and noticed a couple of weeks later that my Experian file was credit searched twice. I mentioned this matter to the mortgage advisor who put a note on my file. However, I keep checking my Experian report regularly and I now have EIGHT searches by the Halifax on there, all for the same mortgage!!! They searched me in November, December and January. Numerous times they spelt my first name wrong.
I've been trying to get these extra searches removed from my file but to no avail! I keep getting told they're busy and can't get through to the right person. The mortgage advisor in the branch is no use either.
I rang Experian and they said I need to sort this out with the Halifax.

What can I do???

thesaint

Ask Halifax who it is you need to speak to and can you have their direct number. Call them until they do something.

eastlondongal

I've tried, I spoke to several mortgage advisors, I faxed my credit report to the Customer Service department, but it seems impossible. They won't give me anyone's direct line.
Should I complain to the Financial Ombudsman?

I'm at my wits end, and i don't want my credit rating to be completely wrecked for the next 12 months!

dwight-van-man

Halifax operate a rolling credit score which basically means everytime something happens with your application, it'll be rescored. So if your broker (or you) haven't packaged the case very well, then you're going to be hit with a higher number of searches than a clean case.

eastlondongal

It wasn't arranged through a broker and we did have to change the mortgage over to another product as we now will be putting down a higher deposit.

But does that justify 8 credit searches?

Also, they searched me 4 times in one day. They typed my name in wrong several times. This makes it look as if I applied for several mortgages with them and used different names!

I'm extremely worried and still struggling to find someone at the Halifax who can help me.

louisdog

The same thing happened to me at the end of 2005. I was an existing customer changing deals and increasing my mortgage a bit. There were loads of hitches, they kept making errors on the application. Finally it all went through and was sorted ... so I thought!

Then a month later I happened to apply to switch telephone providers, and was turned down, because my credit rating was really bad! When I looked into it, Halifax had done search after search after search. They had not obtained my permission for any but the first one, and they were mainly the result of keying errors etc. They were not very helpful in sorting it out, and the credit agency said it was really between me and Halifax. I was at my wits end, we have always had a great credit score up until that point.

The good news is that I phoned and lodged an official complaint at the Halifax, was unhappy with the outcome so asked to escalate the complaint, I was not that hopeful by then but I was then dealing directly with a really nice and helpful chap who got the searches removed within a few days and was very apologetic.

I also complained that I had wasted hours trying to sort this out and they offered me a payment to cover my time and phone bills, it started at £50 but I think they upped it to around £200 in the end.

I would suggest that you forget about trying to talk to the call centre advisers (which I found to be an exercise in frustration!) and initiate a formal complaint, hopefully then it can be sorted out for you. Good luck!

MABLE

We had the same problem with Nationwide. They searched our file three times and out of those three they did it twice without our knowledge. I complained to Experian who in turn contacted NW who said the searches should stay. Outraged I contacted NW and demanded full details relating to these searches and advised them I had contacted a consumer body. NW went away and came back within a few days and admitted they had made a mistake and they duly got the two erroneous seaches removed from my credit file.

eastlondongal

thank you guys, i feel a bit more hopeful now about getting my searches removed!

I went into a local Halifax branch yesterday and even the advisor there claimed she had never heard of anything like it, and she didn't know how to get this sorted either.
I just don't trust these people anymore, it's got to be the worst bank I've ever dealt with!! :mad:

I suppose I won't get them to react unless I launch a formal complaint as well (how exactly?? Through Customer Relations?).

Apparently my mortgage offer was sent out yesterday but I really wish I hadn't gone with this bank...

louisdog

Hiya

I just asked the guy in the regular mortgage call centre how to make a complaint and I think I was transferred straight through. I just had a quick look at my file and initially I got a snotty letter back justifying the searches by some clause in their small print, and a leaflet on their complaints procedure. I then phoned back the person who wrote that letter, and said I was not satisfied and wanted to escalate the complaint. That's when the nice helpful chap got involved and took down loads of details and then sorted it all out for me.

But if it was arranged in their branch, I would have thought that the adviser ought to be able to help. Seems crazy doesn't it.

One good thing though ... I have had a mortgage with the Halifax for 6 years now and I do find them to be quite good generally, i.e. with regular admin type stuff. I have online banking and I can see the mortgage any time I want on there, plus their call centre are good when whenever I have a query, and I once made an overpayment by posting them a cheque, and asked them to keep my payment the same afterwards, and they handled that really well. So hopefully if you can get them to sort this mess out, you'll be really happy with them after that. Fingers crossed anyway :-)

eastlondongal

thanks so much for your help!
I will try the same and will see what happens - if i get a poxy letter as well, i'll know what to do! Hopefully I'll get this sorted out soon as it doesn't only affect my credit rating, but also my partner's.

You've given me some peace of mind louisdog, and some hope that things can only get better!! It's taken 2 whole months to sort out this mortgage and I can now see the light at the end of the tunnel! :j