Couple of queries about my credit report / linked addresses / payment history

theteamcaptain

Hi,

First time post - have been ready around but can't find an answer that helps me on my particular query.

I have an account at Equifax and have been working on getting everything in order on it. Everything is in progress and some of it has already been fixed so I am happy with that, but there are two things that remain:

1) I have a random '4 Payments late' entry for a single month in June 2011 for a home phone line with BT. Before this, everything was up to date, and I know for certain I did not miss any payments on that account or any account I've had for a years now as I can see the account on the BT website. It seems to have occurred around about the time I moved address and got a new phone line (and hence, a new account which is also fully paid with no issues). The account is showing Settled and is at a previous address. Should I have any problems getting that sorted out? I obviously can't be 4 payments late without being 1, 2 and 3 payments late so how did this happen? I'm pretty sure is being detected as a red flag because my 'Credit Score summary comes up like this under Credit Agreements:-

Your payment history shows that you have previously been 3 payments in arrears. Credit grantors will view this negatively and you may have difficulty obtaining credit. Please review the section of your credit report entitled Credit Agreements to see your accounts. For more information about Insight data and what you might be able to do about it, click here.
This reflects accounts at other addresses.


2) A bit of background for this one:-

• Had a student overdraft whilst at Uni with my bank back in 2006. Got to the limit but was incurring no interest so was happy to leave it.
• In December 2007 got a letter to say I was being charged as I exceeded my OD limit. Queried it and found out that it was interest on the account which pushed me overdrawn. Agreed to pay to bring it back under the limit but complained that I had a student account and was not expecting to incur interest charges. Didn't get any answer on this.
• In January, same thing happened again. Started getting increasingly aggressive phone calls from the debt recovery guys at the bank who weren't interested in what I had to say about the situation and demanded I pay the charges, which I duly refused. After a while I gave up trying to get them to fix it, moved my salary to another old basic account I had at the same bank, threatened to report the abusive phone calls and blocked their number from phoning me.
• Eventually, years later, I went into the bank to ask about the situation with that account as I had noticed through online banking that it was closed, I was told it was written off by the bank and they were no longer chasing me for it. I had it removed from online banking and as far as I was concerned, that was it.... not the case.

Once I started checking out my credit profile online, I see the following under Payment History:-

• Up to date from March 2006 to November 2007
• 2 Payments late in December 2007
• Arrangement to Pay in Jan 2008 to Feb 2008
• 1 then 2 Payments late in March 2008 to April 2008
• 3 Payments late from May 2008 to January 2010
• Settled February 2010

The current status of that account is as follows:-

LINKED ADDRESSES
Current Account from My Bank (Currents Accounts) / XXXXXXXXXX (my account ref)

Status: Settled (Green Background)
Current Balance: £0
Credit Limit: £0
Start Balance: £0
Default / Delinquent Balance: £0
Date Last Delinquent: (empty, nothing in the box)
Default Date: (empty, nothing in the box)
Date Updated: 11/02/2010

Customer Account Update
Status
PARTIAL SETTLEMENT

Explanation
Payment received as a full and final settlement although the payment would not fully clear the balance.


I would love if someone could decipher this information and tell me what it means in real terms?

Main points to consider:-

1. It's at a Linked Address
2. The account is showing Settled
3. There's no Balance
4. There's no Default or Delinquent Date

Many many thanks for anyone who takes the time to figure this out for me. I'm thinking about buying a car soon so I want to make sure I can actually do that before searching for one.

:beer:

theteamcaptain

Nobody able to help with this?

rizla_king

What is the settlement date and are there any late payments showing on the history?

theteamcaptain

rizla_king wrote: »

What is the settlement date and are there any late payments showing on the history?

Date Satisfied - 09/02/2010

Regarding Late Payments - Yes, despite the fact the account was in dispute and the account essentially frozen as we weren't agreeing on how to resolve the issue, it shows as late payments as described in the original message.

I can't post an image to explain it but it's as follows:-

• Up to date from March 2006 to November 2007
• 2 Payments late in December 2007
• Arrangement to Pay in Jan 2008 to Feb 2008
• 1 then 2 Payments late in March 2008 to April 2008
• 3 Payments late from May 2008 to January 2010
• Settled February 2010

theteamcaptain

The other thing to know is that I have 4 active accounts at my current address and 2 settled accounts at previous addresses. Even taking in this problem with the old bank account, I have still kept completely up to date on all my accounts for 3 1/2 years.

So I would expect this to have a positive influence on my credit worthiness?

The only issues on my whole profile is this bank account that I'm talking about at a linked address (not listed as a previous address) on my profile and the random 4 payments late thing which is being corrected as I speak.

rizla_king

rizla_king

Was the OD actually paid off?

Those late payments and partial settlement may have negative impact to a lender, but depend on their criteria. Some may be OK with it as > 3 year old. Some may not be.

Could ask for it to be corrected if it is not a true history of the account, but you risk ending up with a default instead?

theteamcaptain

rizla_king wrote: »

Was the OD actually paid off?

Those late payments and partial settlement may have negative impact to a lender, but depend on their criteria. Some may be OK with it as > 3 year old. Some may not be.

Could ask for it to be corrected if it is not a true history of the account, but you risk ending up with a default instead?

Well this is the thing, I'm trying to understand what would be best to do in terms of how this would be perceived when applying for credit such as car finance in the near future.

It wasn't paid off by me, no. I disputed the charges and the amount, as well as the fact I received no notification of changes to the terms of my account. However the Debt Recovery guys at the bank were absolutely no help at all, and seemed more concerned with finding new ways to say the same thing instead of helping me resolve the dispute.

I remember someone in the branch telling me they had record of sending me a letter, but I never got that so I did not know I was going to go overdrawn until after it happened - nor did I realize at the time that it was going to incur interest each month afterwards.

So I brought the balance back into the black, got charged again next month, complained again, got nowhere, and basically decided I wasn't going to pay any more money until they took onboard what I was saying about how the situation had come about. That never happened and things just sat this way for years until eventually they closed the account.


I'm just trying to understand how it is reflected given that it's a linked address. I've read that linked address info cannot be used to determine your credit score?