Credit Score - HELP!!!!

MarkWLondon

Hi,

Long story unfortunately, get a cup of tea and a biscuit and read on

In January my Orange 18-month phone contract was at an end, and would go on a 1-month rolling contract starting February 21st as per the Terms and Conditions. I was already using a different phone so I called Orange and cancelled the contract as of the end of the fixed term. This was all agreed with the CSR on the phone.

In April, I check my bank account and Orange are still debiting their £20 a month. In theory they owe me £60 at this point as I had oral confirmation the contract had been cancelled but I decided not to bother about that. I simply called them again and explained that I had asked to cancel, and it had not been cancelled, please do it right this time. Guy on phone apologized, promised me it was cancelled.

In early August I check my bank account again and they are still debiting money. At this point I was quite justifiably imo annoyed. I called them again, quite angrily, got them to confirm it was now cancelled. I also went into my bank and got them to stop the Direct Debit as I had no intention of continuing to pay £20 a month for nothing if Orange are too incompetent to do what they say.

In October I applied for a credit card with my building society, Nationwide, and was declined, which surprised me as my credit should have been absolutely flawless. I checked with creditexpert.co.uk and guess what? Two outstanding payments to 'EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE - ORANGE'. So they *STILL* at the third attempt didn't manage to cancel my contract and not only that were now screwing up my credit report with their fictitious amounts owing.

I contacted creditexpert and they told me to contact Orange and raise a dispute. In fact when I contacted Orange they were quite apologetic and said that they had immediately closed the account and removed the £40 owing from my account. In fact this time I did receive a letter through the post from their 'disconnections team' so it seems it worked.

But that was 3 weeks ago and this sum owing is *STILL* on my credit report and negatively affecting the score. When I contact creditexpert they tell me to contact Orange, when I contact Orange they tell me that I don't owe them anything and my account shows as £0.00 balance and closed.

How can I solve this. Is their some formal dispute procedure to go through? I know I can leave an explanatory note on my account but I want the incorrect entry removed entirely, not have to explain why it is incorrect. Is there some sort of arbitration procedure to remove incorrect entries from credit reports?

Also, but unrelated, my creditexpert.co.uk report shows me as 'Not being registered to Vote' (I am) and it shows me as having £0 available credit and using 0% of it (in fact I have a barclaycard with a £2300 limit that has been paid off in full by Direct Debit every month for the last 4.5 years).

How can I get these *missing* entries to show up correctly?

Is there a creditexpert/experian rep on the forum that can contact me and sort this out?

Curr946

Any updates to your credit file can take upto 7 weeks depending on when they fixed your account and when their next monthly report is sent.

With regards to the other missing accounts, contact the company and ask then to investigate. But not all companies report to all three CRA's.

As for the voters roll thing, contact your local council office and have then check..

No i would still right to orange and make a complaint, if after 8 weeks they have not refunded you then contact CISAS. (like the financial ombudsman)

http://www.cisas.org.uk/

MarkWLondon

Hi, thanks,

My only issue with waiting up to 7 weeks (well it should be less than 3 now given the time frame of this), is that I am about to apply for a new flat in the next couple of weeks.

Could the dodgy entry on my credit score lead to me not getting the flat? If I remember correctly a credit check was done by the estate agent when I moved in to my current place.

I will contact Barclaycard as you suggest, the strange thing is that in the 'related addresses' section I can see an entry from Barclaycard almost every single month, so Experian are aware of them but its not showing in my credit score.

I checked already with the local council and I am registered to vote and at the correct address.

I think the issue with the bottom two might be due to how Experian store my address, having just checked online now. The postcodes match for all my accounts but Experian has the flat number correct, but the street wrong. Experian show "PELLING STREET, LONDON E14, E14 9xy". But the postcode for Pelling Street starts E14 7 (googled it as had never heard of it before). Pelling Street is nowhere at all near where I live, at least a 30 min walk. Not sure how they could get it so badly wrong but will contact them. The barclaycard/electoral roll has the same (correct) postcode E149xy, and the correct street address.

chanz4

estate agents can only see public information, so you will be fine. e.g ccjs

RedTulip

If you kick up enough of a fuss they can do an urgent update to your credit files, which I believe goes through the same day. I had HSBC do this after they cocked up my credit file.

Experian_company_representative

As chanz4 says, landlords can only see the public data on your credit report, such as court judgments and insolvency records. Your private credit history data is only visible to banks and other lenders.

If you contact us by email through our website or by post we will investigate all the issues you have identified. From what you say there appears to be an address formatting issue, but I'm sure we can sort this out for you.

James Jones