Call Credit: The more I pay off the lower my score?

PaulW922

djr18 wrote: »

I recently looked at my credit file and was completely confused by the fact that my Call Credit score has which was originally 842 (July13) has lowered to 805 and my experience score (881) has lowered to 846.

During this time I have reduced my debt from a total of 23K in October 2012 to 0 last month. All of my cards have been paid off and any extra debt incurred on my 3 credit cards are paid off in full each month.

October 2013 debt paid off in full.
Nationwide £1100
Barclaycard 850

During this time I have opened two new Mobile phone accounts with T-Mobile. This has left two searches on my file.

I have also closed down two unused credit card accounts and one mobile phone account.

I have also signed a personal guarantee for my company credit card so that I could increase the limit to 6k. However I cannot find any record of a search for this increase even though they credit checked me when I applied for the increase.

All sound good so far.

but.... my scores are lower.

Any ideas?

Thanks
David

It is almost certainly the new searches lowering your score but as others have said, don't be too concerned about it - it is only a guide.

guesswho2000

Indeed, ignore callcredit, I don't know if any lenders even use it for mortgages?

Ignore any score any agency gives you, but pay attention to the actual content of your file, particularly with Experian and secondly Equifax.

By content I mean number of searches, age of and number of accounts, total outstanding debt, total available credit, presence on electoral roll and (probably obviously) existence of (more accurately, lack of) public data (CCJs, BRs).

solihullrose

Lloyds have searched all 3 credit agencies. On 2 my daughter & her husband are showing as excellent. Call Credit is not. They have a good wage and owe nothing. They have been advised that Call Credit have him as living at Flat 1 & Flat 2. These are a house made into 2 flats & let out seperately. When he left there he had all utility bills moved immediately to his new address. He never had a loan there and had his deposit back from the person he rented from. This clearly is an error on the part of Call Credit as they seem to have him listed at both flats they must be attaching him to someone's debt owed at the other flat. To sort this out they have been told that it will take about a month. By then they will have lost the house & mortgage.

Tixy

solihullrose wrote: »

Lloyds have searched all 3 credit agencies. On 2 my daughter & her husband are showing as excellent. Call Credit is not. They have a good wage and owe nothing. They have been advised that Call Credit have him as living at Flat 1 & Flat 2. These are a house made into 2 flats & let out seperately. When he left there he had all utility bills moved immediately to his new address. He never had a loan there and had his deposit back from the person he rented from. This clearly is an error on the part of Call Credit as they seem to have him listed at both flats they must be attaching him to someone's debt owed at the other flat. To sort this out they have been told that it will take about a month. By then they will have lost the house & mortgage.

Even if he was listed as living at 2 addresses this would not cause the issue you describe.

If 'someone's debt' is attached to him then that debt would appear on his credit file - so what debt/credit account appears that doesn't belong to him?

solihullrose

That is the problem at the moment as they have not been able to see the Call Credit report online so they have to write in asking for it. They were advised that when they get it they need to contact who ever thinks he owes them anything. Get them to write saying it is not right and from there Call Credit will take a month to correct. A month is way to long to correct errors as they would lose the house they want and the mortgage offer.

Tixy

I assume he tried to get it online through noddle but was unable to?

In which case they yes it sounds like he will need to wait until he see what is on there that is incorrect. If it is an obvious error and the false creditor is willing they can fasttrack corrections and get the file changed in less than the usual month. On odd occasions I've seen them corrected in a couple of days.

Or the mortgage company may be willing to accept a letter from the false creditor to state that they accept that the file is incorrect and have sent alterations to the credit reference agency.

solihullrose

Thank you for your reply Tixy. I will let them know that sometimes it can be sorted in less than a month. A month to change is what Call Credit advised but they seem to be rather unhelpfull. This is all clearly a mistake as the other two are coming up as perfect. It is just so annoying that the only one with a problem is the only one they can not view online. As they both have good jobs and will have no problems with re-payments and have always paid their bills on time it seems so very unfair that they have been told that it is some problem attached to a rental address. He left no bills there and had his deposit returned. His previous landlord has said that he is willing to send a letter stating that he always paid him on time.

Tixy

The landlord letter won't help - as the debt or whatever appears on file won't relate to rent. And the landlord would have no way of knowing if he run up consumer credit debts etc (obviously he didn't be the landlord isn't going to be reference enough for a mortgage company in this situation).

I know this won't help him now - but for any future readers this is why it is always worth getting copies of your credit reports from all 3 agencies before you try to obtain a mortgage.

solihullrose

Hi
I know that the landlord can not state that he owed no money only that he owed no money to him. It's just that as it will take at least a week for Call Credit to receive his request and post back his credit file we thought that if the debt that had been run up was for rent a letter from his landlord could help. If the debt that has been wrongly attached to him is any other debt then it will not help and can not be tackled until the report has been received. They had been hoping that they could buy the house that they want quickly as the seller wishes is sold quickly and they as 1st time buyers wish to move in quickly. This problem has just put a mojor hurdle up for them. Before this problem arose we had not heard of Call Credit.

djr18

I am not too worried about my credit score, but I just wanted to know why it was lower. My score being lower just seemed to contradict all the advice given about raising / maintaining your credit score.

I think the lesson I have learned is the score is not just about the credit worthiness of the customer but also the profitability of the customer. I guess that I would need to start taking out more debt that I pay interest on to help improve my score.

Here is a reply to my question from a well known credit file company.

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Hi David,

Thanks for your message.

As you have paid off your credit cards, you now have fewer open accounts, which means less payments are being made. We advise that your score is built upon your ability to repay the amount you borrow. So the more credit agreements you have and the more monthly payments you make, the higher your credit score is likely to be. However, we do not advise you to take out credit for the sake of it.

As long as you hold a fair amount of credit, make all of your monthly payments on time and remain registered upon the electoral roll, you should then see a gradual increase in your credit score.

Regards,

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