Credit score bands.

pitbullpeebs

I have had a letter this morning from tesco finance declining my application for a tesco clubcard credit card, the reason they explain is that they consult a CRA (Experian) and it was this information that made them come to their decision. I have 3 defaults which actually come off the year as they have been on there over 5 years, but everything else eg; mortgage, mobile phone, Capital One CC, Blackhorse loan are all up to date, so i believe that the defaults must be the reason they came to their decision, They have asked me to write to them if i would like to dispute their decision and have anything to support my claim, I was wondering if i wrote to them and explained that the default's come off this year and that everything else is OK weather they would reconsider? I had a mortgage advisor come round last week and he said that most credit lender's are not concerned if the default's are more than 3 years old!

thesaint

pitbullpeebs wrote: »

I have had a letter this morning from tesco finance declining my application for a tesco clubcard credit card, the reason they explain is that they consult a CRA (Experian) and it was this information that made them come to their decision. I have 3 defaults which actually come off the year as they have been on there over 5 years, but everything else eg; mortgage, mobile phone, Capital One CC, Blackhorse loan are all up to date, so i believe that the defaults must be the reason they came to their decision, They have asked me to write to them if i would like to dispute their decision and have anything to support my claim, I was wondering if i wrote to them and explained that the default's come off this year and that everything else is OK weather they would reconsider? I had a mortgage advisor come round last week and he said that most credit lender's are not concerned if the default's are more than 3 years old!

Lenders will consider your application if you write in like I mentioned above, most applications are decided by computer, so when you write in a human will look at it and decide, if you can afford what you are asking for.

pitbullpeebs

I have written a letter to them and sent it off, I will keep you posted

I got my credit score from Experian and it was 805 (with 1000 being the highest) and they are saying it is fair!!!

WindSinger_2

Hi,
This is my first post so please treat me gently. I too have paid for the full reports from all three main CRAs following Martin's advise and using checkmyfile.com (perhaps berate me silently for this not-so-obvious error!!!)

My questions is: I have a default dating from 2003 which the report says is still outstanding. This has actually been cleared (£153) but only recently. Will the fact that I have now cleared the balance reflect well on my report or will lenders still look unfavourably until it comes off the report after 4 years. Also, is that 4 years from the date of the default or the date it was settled?

All other credit payments I have, have been up to date and marked as OK on the report for the past 3 months minimum. How long do you think that it will take to repair the damage done?

BTW I have recently been turned down for 2 credit cards. I only applied as the report rated me as poor under the heading 'no recent credit searches'

Many thanks, Ellie X

exel1966

xgingerx wrote: »

Hi, do you mean then that they actaully take the score from Equifax when applying for a loan with Barclaycard ????

I have today spoken to a Barclaycard Employee/Aquaintance and he catigorically stated that they do credit score, as all lenders do, but the 3 digit number (what some people think is a credit score) has absolutely no influence on their decision as it is not accepted within the industry as having any meaning !!

Clariman

EllieStewart wrote: »

Hi,
This is my first post so please treat me gently. I too have paid for the full reports from all three main CRAs following Martin's advise and using checkmyfile.com (perhaps berate me silently for this not-so-obvious error!!!)

I'm not sure what the "error" that you are talking about is(?). Getting a copy of your credit report (also known as credit history or credit file) is a good thing because it contains all the facts about your use of credit and is the precise information that a lender sees when they credit check you i.e. they feed those facts into their own credit scoring system. What some of us have said were a bit of a waste of time are the credit scores provided by the CRAs which cost a lot of money and are only an opinion of one CRA.

My questions is: I have a default dating from 2003 which the report says is still outstanding. This has actually been cleared (£153) but only recently. Will the fact that I have now cleared the balance reflect well on my report or will lenders still look unfavourably until it comes off the report after 4 years. Also, is that 4 years from the date of the default or the date it was settled?

I think clearing the debt will improve things a bit as it will now show as "settled" (I guess). However, the fact that you defaulted will still have a negative impact for a while. This is not really my specialist area though so someone else can probably advise better on how long these things stick around for.

Clariman

vwman_3

EllieStewart wrote: »

Hi,
This is my first post so please treat me gently. I too have paid for the full reports from all three main CRAs following Martin's advise and using checkmyfile.com (perhaps berate me silently for this not-so-obvious error!!!)

My questions is: I have a default dating from 2003 which the report says is still outstanding. This has actually been cleared (£153) but only recently. Will the fact that I have now cleared the balance reflect well on my report or will lenders still look unfavourably until it comes off the report after 4 years. Also, is that 4 years from the date of the default or the date it was settled?

All other credit payments I have, have been up to date and marked as OK on the report for the past 3 months minimum. How long do you think that it will take to repair the damage done?

BTW I have recently been turned down for 2 credit cards. I only applied as the report rated me as poor under the heading 'no recent credit searches'

Many thanks, Ellie X

The default will stay on your file for 6 years not 4 years, and as long as it is there you will have a job getting any sort of reasonable credit, whatever date the default was placed on your file, just add 6 years onto it and thats when it will be removed, (2009 in your case ) in theory you can still be paying off the default after 6 years but it will not show on your file after that date.

bert&ernie

Just to be clear - a credit score is generally expressed as a three digit number. The score is created using a "score card". A large number of variables are fed into the score card and a series of pre-defined calculations are performed to arrive at a single value - the score - which is much simpler to use in decisoning.

A lender will almost certainly employ some kind of score in their decisoning strategy. They may develop their own bespoke score cards or buy one "off the peg". They may also make use of a bureau score - one provided by the credit bureau based on their own scorecard and data from the credit file.

When a lender searches the credit bureau, they will get a "block" of summarised bureau data from the CRA e.g. Experian Delphi. This contains a number of scores or similar numeric values e.g. credit, fraud, indebtedness index, authentication index etc. The lender may choose to use these scores directly in their decision strategy or incorporate them into their own scorecards.

I don't know if the Experian CreditExpert National Credit Score is the same as the Delphi score made available to lenders. Either way, most lenders will employ their own bespoke scoring and strategies in order to obtain a competitive advantage in the market.

dizzy_blonde_2

Petmidget wrote: »

And before you flame me for wasting MY money. I personally value it as an indication that I am succesfully rebuiding my credit rating after royally screwing it about 4 years ago.

Roughly how long does it take to rebuild a poor credit history? For example, if mine was poor at 200 (no idea what mine is, but I'm just giving an example), how long would it take to build it to excellent?

tom188

Several years but it would depend how bad you are - eg CCJs/defaults would mean obtaining credit would be hindered for 6 years as these would be on the file for this length of time, followed by several years of showing good repayment history. A few missed payments will become insignificant much quicker.