Late payment markers with Orange/EE

jcalow

I am doing a little spring cleaning of my finances and have been checking my Credit Report. I checked my report with Equifax and was surprised to find that I had a big red box on my report marking my repayments as "Very Poor", for everything else I rank "Excellent". I have never defaulted or anything like that and have 12 settled accounts and 4 still running, all no problems. After looking through the report it is spotless apart from a phone contract I held with Orange in 2011. I am unsure as to what the problem was this account and I wouldn't have knowingly not paid it. Since Orange has now become EE they seem to know very little about the account. I had to battle with their call centre and even then they could only give me several account numbers and couldn't tell me which one was the right one!

I was hoping I may be able to get Orange to change at least some of these to "Unreported" to remove the massive red mark. I have been a very good customer to Orange and have had many accounts, several of which are still active and I have always been a good payer on all of them. Clearly there was a bit of a mix up here.

Please could someone advise me on the best approach to take? I hope to be applying for a mortgage in 2 years time and this will still be showing on my report by then.

jcalow

EE advised I email their credit team at Creditfilequery@everythingeverywhere.com This is what I wrote:

I was shocked to discover that on an Orange mobile phone contract that was completed in October 2011, I have been recorded as missing payments for July, August and September 2011, flagging my account as 3 months in arrears. I do not recall any problems with this account and have not knowing missed any payments. Upon checking my statements I cannot see anything untoward. There is a late payment recorded for May 2011 and this I agree was paid late, a banking error on my part. However, I disagree with the 3 consecutive missed payments. On my credit file held with Equifax, the fact that I have been marked as 3 months in arrears has significantly lowered my credit score and put a “Very Poor” label on the top level of my report. Other than this my report is very good.

I believe that the action taken by Orange to record payment data on my report in this way is very unfair and does not accurately reflect my payment record with Orange. I have been a loyal customer to Orange and have had a number of phone contracts with you, all paid with no issues. Currently with Orange I have a 24 month Ipad contract, my home broadband and home phone, all are current contracts with no missed or late payments.

I would like to get this issue resolved and this incorrect data removed from my report. Please can you review this data and make the corrections required.

Their response today:

Thank you for your query about the credit data that we hold on your Equifax, Experian and Callcredit credit files.

We’ve looked into this for you and the payments made to your account and the records held at Equifax, Experian and Callcredit are correct. They were recorded as part of Orange’s terms and conditions.

If you’d like more information on understanding your credit file, please contact one of the following credit agencies:

Experian UK Headquarters
Talbot House, Talbot Street, Nottingham, N80 1TH
Website: https://www.experian.co.uk Tel: 0844 481 8000

Equifax Credit File Advice Centre
P.O. Box 1140, Bradford, BD1 5US
Website: https://www.equifax.co.uk

Callcredit Plc
Consumer Services Team, PO Box 491, Leeds, LS3 1WZ
Website: https://www.mycallcredit.com Tel: 0870 0601414

Thanks again for writing to us.