Credit report question

matttye

Hello

I used to bank with the Halifax and had a current account with them. It's a standard current account with no monthly fee. As far as I know I have £1 in the account and therefore don't owe anything on it.

I've just checked my credit report and it seems to think I've been six payments late on this account since November 2011, which baffles me. I've submitted a request that they correct it.

My question is, if I am actually incorrect and for some bizarre reason I owe the Halifax £1, is there any way of getting this taken off my credit report on the basis that they haven't sent me a bank statement or made any attempt to contact me in all this time, and I would have paid it immediately had I been aware of the debt?

According to the Equifax credit report my current balance is "£1" so that suggests to me that I'm in credit by £1.

Going to get a bank statement off the Halifax tomorrow.

Not sure if this will have a very negative impact on my credit report anyway, but the long line of red boxes doesn't look very good!

Thanks in advance for any help.

PS: Wasn't sure where to post this but seemed like the most appropriate forum. Please feel free to move the thread if there is a better place for it.

grumbler

matttye wrote: »

My question is, if I am actually incorrect and for some bizarre reason I owe the Halifax £1, is there any way of getting this taken off my credit report on the basis that they haven't sent me a bank statement or made any attempt to contact me in all this time, and I would have paid it immediately had I been aware of the debt?

Very often statements are online nowadays. Apparently they have to contact you only before reporting a default.

According to the Equifax credit report my current balance is "£1" so that suggests to me that I'm in credit by £1.

I am pretty sure it's the debit balance.

Not sure if this will have a very negative impact on my credit report anyway

It certainly will. The only question is how strong the impact is.

matttye

grumbler wrote: »

Very often statements are online nowadays. Apparently they have to contact you only before reporting a default.
I am pretty sure it's the debit balance.
It certainly will. The only question is how strong the impact is.

Thanks.

Do you know if there's any way of having it taken off or will I just have to submit a Notice of Correction to explain why I haven't paid it? I hope that lenders will actually read the Notice of Correction and also the amount owed if so and not just consider the 'missed payments.'

I was in debt back in 2009 but I cleared all that and since then I have saved for anything I wanted rather than borrowing. Only now that I am hoping to get a mortgage soon have I felt that I should check my credit report and noticed this.

As far as I was concerned I paid off the Halifax in full after I got into debt with an overdraft I had on my account.

I'll have to see what the bank statement says tomorrow.

Hominu

If you can, I wouldn't apply a notice of correction. All it means is that any credit requests are deferred until a human reads them. This could add weeks to any credit application such as opening current accounts, credit cards, etc.

Instead, if you get denied credit by an automatic tool, request someone look at the request again with the idea of getting the automatic decline overturned.

matttye

Very confused and a little annoyed about this now. My bank statement confirms what I thought. Back in July 2009 I was £47.19 overdrawn and the Halifax confirmed that interest of £2.67 would be due on my account. I therefore paid in a cheque for £49.81 which left me £2.67 in credit.

The £2.67 interest went out on 31st July 2009, leaving me with a £0.00 balance.

The following month, on 31st August 2009, they charged me £1.26 interest.

Why was I charged interest in August 2009 when I had a zero balance?

The Halifax also confirmed that I have not been sent a bank statement since July 2009, so I had no way of knowing about the interest charged in August 2009.

In any event I paid them £1.26 and I've now closed the account, but I'm just trying to figure out why I owed them money in the first place as it doesn't make sense to me.

Thanks for help

grumbler

matttye wrote: »

Very confused and a little annoyed about this now. My bank statement confirms what I thought. Back in July 2009 I was £47.19 overdrawn and the Halifax confirmed that interest of £2.67 would be due on my account. I therefore paid in a cheque for £49.81 which left me £2.67 in credit.

49.81-47.19=2.62, not 2.67

The following month, on 31st August 2009, they charged me £1.26 interest.

Why was I charged interest in August 2009 when I had a zero balance?

The interest after the statement was produced and before your cheque was cleared?

matttye

grumbler wrote: »

49.81-47.19=2.62, not 2.67


The interest after the statement was produced and before your cheque was cleared?

Sorry, I was £47.14 overdrawn.

Probably. They said I haven't had a bank statement since July 2009 though, so I couldn't possibly have known I had anything to pay.

I'm not sure if I will be shooting myself in the foot by asking them why they only started notifying Equifax that I had missed payments two and a half years after the interest on my account was charged. If they notified Equifax immediately, however, I might have noticed that I owed them money via my credit report!

matttye

I've written to the bank asking why interest accrued when the cashier guaranteed there would be no further charges on the account and why I have never received a bank statement or letter in the four years since the charge was added. I have never been registered for telephone or internet banking.

Hopefully I can get this sorted as I imagine a one and a half year debt with no effort to pay will do wonders for my chances of getting credit.

I would think the bank surely has some responsibility of reminding customers about a debt too, especially when it is reporting failures to pay.

pmduk

matttye wrote: »

Probably. They said I haven't had a bank statement since July 2009 though, so I couldn't possibly have known I had anything to pay.

This is the angle I'd pursue. If it's not worth them producing a statement, they can hardly pursue you for anything owed upon it. I suspect the FOS wouldn''t be impressed by them ignoring the rules either. I understood that if an account is open, they're obliged to produce an annual statement, though I may be wrong,

matttye

pmduk wrote: »

This is the angle I'd pursue. If it's not worth them producing a statement, they can hardly pursue you for anything owed upon it. I suspect the FOS wouldn''t be impressed by them ignoring the rules either. I understood that if an account is open, they're obliged to produce an annual statement, though I may be wrong,

Thanks for the advice.

I also think the effect this will have on my credit report is disproportionate to the "crime" (for lack of a better word). Who wouldn't pay a £1.xx debt if they were aware of it?!

I worked hard, spending almost all of my money back in 2009 on paying off debts to get myself into a better position financially and I've been debt free (or thought I was) ever since, so by now, if my understanding is correct, it should only be a couple of years until my credit report improves significantly when my past debts stop being recorded after six years. That's all gone to pot now unless this is sorted out!

One call or letter from the bank and I'd have paid it immediately. I've worked about ten minutes from the bank five days a week for the last four years.

Finally, it appears that this is not something the Halifax typically chase people for, as they have a £10 buffer whereby people aren't charged for using an overdraft.

matttye

Another question I will put to the Halifax if I don't get a positive response to my first letter is why they started reporting late payments on an overdraft that I've never been asked to pay back. Surely that isn't allowed?

Even if I had been aware that I was in my overdraft, the Halifax hasn't asked me to pay it back so I can't be late paying it.