Credit file advice please

Lukewarm25

I'm 25 years old, and have struggled to get much credit for a number of years.

I got my credit file though experian, admittedly there is a default (£520) from Barclycard that I'm trying to battle out via the ombudsman. But.. The comments from experian for my credit score to be 668, is :

"You have several credit agreements (excluding mortgages), and the outstanding balance is high"

Ive been on around £26k for five years, and according to the comments on experian - I have used 74% of my available credit. The credit that I have is 1) £1300 on personal finance. 2) 1 vanquis £250 limit credit card. payments on both are upto date and are regular, i.e never missed.

I have a mobile phone on contract with O2 that shows on my file with £0 limit and have not missed a payment for 2 years and totally up to date.

There are however a few old (5years pls) unused current accounts with £0 overdraft shown as settled with Barclays, santander and royal bank of Scotland - should I close these to free up credit???

Also, if not my main concern is what I fear is stopping me get car finance, or a small loan ... is a record from black horse finance. This is due to when I had a car from a garage on finance and the total amount of finance was £17'866 but after a month I decided I did not want to keep the car and persuaded the garage to take the car back, that they did. The Account shows as settled , with £0 balance, but where it says payment terms on my credit file it says £295 x 60 months, this was 27/06/2007. I fear that a potential creditor could be put off by this note?

I have often been asked if I would like to upgrade my bog standard Halifax account 'visa electron' when going into a branch, after being asked is that your salary going in? Is this all down to the default I mentioned at the start with barclaycard that I cannot get more than £2k credit.. I

Does 2k limit sound right for the wage im on ? I'm living with a partner (rented unfurnished) and not married. Any help appreciated , thanks!

Tixy

If the old accounts have no overdraft then they are not taken into account by potential lenders when considering your available credit.

If the bh car finance shows all payments made on time and a zero balance then there should be no reason this would pay off a potential lender.

The reason you will have struggled to get credit is almost certainly the default rather than anything else you have mentioned on your file. A default is very bad news - especially if unpaid.

Regardless of your wage it will be hard to get anything other than low level subprime credit whilst that shows on file.

Lukewarm25

Thank you! I will close the unused accounts anyway as I don't need them. Fingers crossed for the barclaycard battle then! This was for info a £100 credit limit card that I did max out, and then lost my job so missed payments. We t quiet for a number of months then I got a bill from them for nearly £600! Which must be mostly made up (60% I would guess of charges!). I wrote to barclaycard asking for an explanation, got no reply and next thing I know it was with a debt collector - Lowell. They requested statements from barclaycard at my request to show the breakdown of how they came to that amount, that when I received them only showed where the balance owed went from £510 to £590 , and Lowell say to me thy do nit feel obliged to ask for further statements and barclaycard won't talk to me as they ave passed the debt on..

Joy. :A

Experian_company_representative

Generally sensible to keep your credit utilisation to less than 50% of your limits, to avoid excessive available credit and to not chop and change all of your credit agreements regularly (old accounts are good for credit scoring).

James Jones