Debt at the age of 13

thomash131

When I was 13, I created an account on eBay and began selling some of my items. Afterwards, I forgot to pay the seller fee of £0.43 and eBay sold the case to a debt collection company who phoned me up.

I ended up paying £10.43 for this, not realising that the debt was not enforcable due to my age.

Would this show on my credit report once I'm 18? And would it affect my credit score in the future?

Thanks.

cattie

You are supposed to be 18 to open an ebay account, so I would have thought that as you were under age, there was no liability on you to pay excess fees added by a debt collection agency.

I believe that you also have to be 18 yrs old to have credit of any kind without a guarantor, so anything that occurred before you were legally allowed credit would not count against you.

TherealMandM

http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/england/debt_e/young_people_money_and_consumer_rights.htm

You can borrow money at any age, but access to loans may be limited because a lender will not usually be able to take a young person to court if they break the terms of a loan. This is because you cannot usually be legally held to a contract you make when you are under 18.

bengal-stripe

eBay (or anyone else) would not open an account for a thirteen year old. You must have given the wrong date of birth or declared falsely that you are over the age of eighteen. To call a spade a spade, you have committed fraud.

If I were you, I would keep my head well under the parapet. Otherwise you might get a fraud marker against your name and that is certainly far worse than having to pay £10.43

Gordon_Hose

You've paid it back now, so I don't see the point of this thread.

You won't get the money back, if that's what you're after?

The debt will stay on your file for 6 years. Best thing to do is to wait until you're 18 and get a copy of your credit file (£2 statutory reports from Experian and Equifax, free from Noddle) and see what shows up. If nothing, good. If there is an entry for this then you'll only have to wait for a year until it's gone.

heman2012

bengal-stripe wrote: »

eBay (or anyone else) would not open an account for a thirteen year old. You must have given the wrong date of birth or declared falsely that you are over the age of eighteen. To call a spade a spade, you have committed fraud.

If I were you, I would keep my head well under the parapet. Otherwise you might get a fraud marker against your name and that is certainly far worse than having to pay £10.43

Is it not fraud lieing to a private conpany about your age.

thomash131

bengal-stripe wrote: »

eBay (or anyone else) would not open an account for a thirteen year old. You must have given the wrong date of birth or declared falsely that you are over the age of eighteen. To call a spade a spade, you have committed fraud.

If I were you, I would keep my head well under the parapet. Otherwise you might get a fraud marker against your name and that is certainly far worse than having to pay £10.43

They didn't ask for my date of birth during the registration. The form has since changed though, so they now ask for it.

Gordon_Hose wrote: »

You've paid it back now, so I don't see the point of this thread.

You won't get the money back, if that's what you're after?

The debt will stay on your file for 6 years. Best thing to do is to wait until you're 18 and get a copy of your credit file (£2 statutory reports from Experian and Equifax, free from Noddle) and see what shows up. If nothing, good. If there is an entry for this then you'll only have to wait for a year until it's gone.

Ah, thank you for clearing this up.

I'm not after the money, I just want to ensure I haven't wrecked my credit history.

Thanks for your replies.

Gordon_Hose

You won't know what damage there is until you get a copy of your files.

bengal-stripe

heman2012 wrote: »

Is it not fraud lieing to a private conpany about your age.

If you lie about your age to gain pecuniary advantages through the deception, then it is fraud. You wouldn't have gotten the account (or other facilities) had you been honest. So you would have benefited, potentially to the detriment of the company.

If it is just a 'customer profile' and you make yourself two decades younger, than it is just vanity.

CKhalvashi

bengal-stripe wrote: »

If you lie about your age to gain pecuniary advantages through the deception, then it is fraud. You wouldn't have gotten the account (or other facilities) had you been honest. So you would have benefited, potentially to the detriment of the company.

If it is just a 'customer profile' and you make yourself two decades younger, than it is just vanity.

I didn't realise that!

As mentioned above, don't do anything about it, as it's stepping into CIFAS territory.

CK

soolin

thomash131 wrote: »

They didn't ask for my date of birth during the registration. The form has since changed though, so they now ask for it.


Ah, thank you for clearing this up.

I'm not after the money, I just want to ensure I haven't wrecked my credit history.

Thanks for your replies.

They have always asked for new users to confirm that they are over 18 , so you might not have been specifically asked for your date of birth but you would have been asked to formally declare that you were over 18.