Credit File Mark - 6 Year Ordeal....

JohnnyCash-ewNuts

Hi Martin + Blog Members,

Wondered whether anyone else had this problem with Barclays Bank or any bank and if I have a leg to stand on in requesting compensation and if so how much to request?

In 2005 I took out a personal loan, in 2006 there was a mess up with one of the direct debit payments where the money seemed to come out then a couple of days later went back into my account, and unfortunately at the time I was not using Online Banking so overlooked this error. I was never notified by the bank at the time that the payment had been missed and the following month my direct debit came out as per usual and so on for the next couple of years.

In Oct 2008, I was notified by Barclays that I had missed a loan payment....I immediately rang Barclays to check what was going on as, at this time now i was online and checked the last 10 months and no payments had been missed....Barclays said they had had a new system installed that picked up every little discrepancy and it was for a payment missed in 2006!!! So my first notification of this was 2 years later after the missed payment.

Barclays accepted responsibility and promised to amend my credit file which at the time was 62 out of 999, due to the 18mths overdue payment that was missed. I only discovered this on my credit file when someone i knew recommended I sign up to Credit Expert and check my file as I was decline Vehicle Finance at the time.

I mentioned all of the above to Barclays and stated had they notified me by letter which they are supposed to do within a month of the missed payment then I would have been able to correct the error and my credit file would not have been so badly affected.

Anyway...Barclays agreed to sort this all out and amend the credit file. Soon after my credit file jumped back up to 699 so i assumed all had been resolved...(Never Trust a Bank or Assume!!)

Up until Nov 2011 when my loan was finally paid off, i discovered that the mark on my credit file had always been there, i found this out from a comment passed onto me from a Halifax Underwriting Team when applying for a new loan....

I have had declines for the following over the last 6 years:

Vehicle Finance, Mortgage Application and the Recent Loan in Nov 2011.

I believe all due to that particular mark on my file which Barclays have on numerous occasions said would be corrected and put right.

I have my account fiscal data, letters, logged times and dates of calls etc dating back to the very first letter I received in 2008.

Would like to know what people in the know think about my situation, as Barclays only gave me an apology, which I believed was not good enough, then i threatened them with the FOS and the OFT and possibly solicitors. They offered me £250, i refused that and gave them a figure i believed was reasonable for the 6 year ordeal and upon their request, then they offered me £500. So I am now currently waiting on a response from the FOS.

???

Sorry for the long message, thanks for reading and thanks for any replies....

bargainbetty

I have recently caught Halifax applying incorrect negative data to my file, and have gone after them wholesale to get the wrongly applied data removed.

If the data has been updated, ask Barclays for a letter confirming that the data was incorrectly applied and should have been removed on whatever date it was. Ask Barclays to send a copy of that letter to every organisation (or do it yourself) stating that they caused an erroneous negative marker to be placed. Have them explain that you are actually quite a brilliant customer, and it shouldn't have happened. Ask them to remove the declines from your credit report, based upon the fact that you wouldn't have been declined had it not been for Barclays cocking up.

If Barclays won't do it in full, get the letter and then charge your your professional hourly rate for the work you do. In full. I got £60 from Halifax for the time I had to spend switching my DDs over because I didn't qualify for the service doing it for me!

Be honest, what level of compensation are you seeking? You won't get thousands. You are within your rights to accept the money but refuse to close the complaint until the black marks and every associated action linked to them has been removed.

tlh858

Credit scores are meaningless numbers, and should be ignored. Lenders don't use them for anything.
They are just something made up by Experian (and probably other credit agencies) and are only based on the info that Experian have, which is only a small part of the info used to decide if you can have a particular loan or not.

While a missed payment on your credit report is certainly not a good thing to have, a single missed payment is not likely to cause multiple applications for credit to be declined.
If a loan you applied for in Nov 2011 was declined, it is exceptionally unlikely that one missed payment from 5 years earlier would have been responsible, or had any effect at all.
Far more relevant is the ratio of the loan and all other credit you had already compared to your income, what you wanted the new loan for, where you lived, whether you owned/rented etc., how long you had been employed, what your job was and loads of other things.
Lenders will never give you the actual reasons for declining either.

You have only provided very limited information, but calling an error over one missed payment a '6 year ordeal' seems way over the top.

JohnnyCash-ewNuts

Quote "While a missed payment on your credit report is certainly not a good thing to have, a single missed payment is not likely to cause multiple applications for credit to be declined.
If a loan you applied for in Nov 2011 was declined, it is exceptionally unlikely that one missed payment from 5 years earlier would have been responsible, or had any effect at all."

So...When the assistant at halifax is on the phone to the underwriting team at the exact time we are processing the loan application and the reason for not obtaining the loan is given as "you have had a previous mark on a previous loan" being the reason you have been declined, does that not constitute as being the reason I was declined??

chanz4

are halifax willing to put it in writting, it could also be due to how many things your applying for.

sharpy2010

YOu have been offered five HUNDRED pounds for this? And you are seeking more? Dear god...

InsertWittyName

Take the £500 quickly, before they change their minds...

CLAPTON

whta exactly do your credit files actuallly say?

pippitypop

I would write to them accepting the £500 and ask them when they will be planning to update your credit file with the correct information. If you can atleast get it in writing that it should have been removed years ago then you could just send the correspondence to the credit reference agencies yourself.

tell_it_how_it_is

I'd agree with pippitypop with the communication, and indeed with pippitypop and the others with regards to snapping their hands off for the £500.

JohnnyCash-ewNuts

chanz4 wrote: »

are halifax willing to put it in writting, it could also be due to how many things your applying for.

Only the items mentioned above over the 6 year period, i know based on what banks tell you and what you read online that you should never keep re-applying continuously as that supposedly affects your Credit File, but i usually left it 6mths to a year to apply for each individual item. I understand about snapping their hand off for the £500, however if this mark was a result of me missing out on a mortgage then i have literally wasted nearly £3k+ in rent for the last year which would have been better spent on my own home not to mention postage costs for letters to barclays and telephone calls at their rates and various other trips to and from banks etc etc etc all that certainly does not add up to the pocket change they are offering me if in fact there mess up has affected my application?

The fact is that I have reduced my debts massively since 2006, one year clearing £3K and i literally now only owe less than £1k to creditors, never miss payments, always pay more than the minimum and closing an account when settled. My score is now 986 out of 999, the only other reason for not obtaining credit in my circumstances is due to recession and lenders having tougher rules, but i think that is hit and miss at most these days, my wage has gone up three times in the last 4 years so i definitely know what i can and cannot afford.

*** And why do underwriters have the right not to tell us why we have been declined??? Surely by giving us that information it can only help us fix the problems head on and understand what we need to do to better our situations? Instead of having to waste time and money asking other companies for advise and help like Credit Expert!!***