8-10 weeks to update files?

WorkingTowardsDebtFree

I've been working towards getting debt free for some time now, and doing reasonably well.

As I've paid off debts (even those I haven't been chased for), generally creditors update files within about a month - until now.

Those I've paid off in the last two months are quoting "8 to 10 weeks" almost uniformly to update credit files.

Don't get me wrong - I don't want them cleaned up to get more credit, but if I've made payment in good faith then I think that the updates should be made in a timely fashion. Certainly within a monthly update timeframe (actually, I think it should be more like a weekly update - but I accept that this isn't how it works).

So I'm finding that I have to wait 10 weeks for an update, then if it doesn't happen (as has happened a few times) I have to raise a dispute. I then have to wait another 28 days to be told that the information is correct and the dispute has been closed, I then have to threaten the ICO and FOS and send recorded letters and give another 4 - 8 weeks... Then the record gets updated without as much as an apology. In total could be almost 6 months to get correct information showing?

It almost seems setup so that people think "I can't be bothered with the hassle, being called a liar (companies saying that the info is correct when it's not) and having it drag out for half a year"...

What a joke!

InsideInsurance

The problem is that the CRAs are typically only updated once a month and there is a vast amount of information that is required to do this which takes a long time to be crunched.

So one bank I did work with ran a data extract on the 28th of every month. If you had made a payment on the 29th then you've got over a 4 week wait there already.

Once the data extract was gotten there was a very slow and painful process of manipulating it into the CRA required format and validating it had gone through correctly. If it hadnt then it had to be redone and revalidated etc. They allowed 3 weeks for this. So already you are potentially at 7 weeks.

Then the data is sent to the CRAs and they have to process and validate it. I don't know exactly how long this takes but based on what I have seen its at least a couple of weeks and so you are up to your "up to 10 weeks"

Of cause this is all for something simple like applying a payment to a credit card. For something more complex like closing a bank account then the bank process for doing that can be a few weeks and if that completes on the 29th at this particular bank then you've got the 10 weeks or so after that then your more looking at up to 13 weeks.


Had issues with Natwest applying incorrect updates to the CRAs for months. Dont know their processes exactly but when they dealt with my complaint their system kept showing problems with the account and "the team that should be fixing it" had "missed it" which would suggest they dont fix it in the system but update the files manually in some way

WorkingTowardsDebtFree

Sorry, I disagree.

I work in IT myself (security & data) - and there is no reason for it to take that long for information to be "crunched" - other than by purposeful poor design.

Surely CRAs should just request data in a specific format, companies export relevant data from their systems in that format on a schedule, sends across to CRA, CRA imports and job done. I know that's a simplistic view, but at the crux of things, that's the high-level process.

I know this to be true - I've had to do similar things between multiple organisations when it comes to several industries. Okay, so not for 50 million adults in the UK, but certainly for several million individual "items" with many times the complex data sets per "item".

I know there's a huge amount of data. I accept that mistakes can happen. I don't accept that it's really, really complex to keep this information updated frequently and fairly accurately - and certainly so that mistakes reported can be adequately investigated in a timely fashion.

Maybe the systems are old and antiquated. Maybe they're not fit for purpose. If so they'll be costing a lot of money to keep running the way they are though - and whilst a transformation project would cost money, the ROI would be very beneficial in a very short amount of time.

Someone must like these systems running poorly, inaccurately and badly for it to be like this. When there's very stringent regulation on so many industries, individuals and freedoms - often over zealously too - one has to wonder why the CRA industry gets what appears to be an easy ride surely? The ability to report misinformation and people only to be held to account after a very lengthy process that can quite easily be considered to put people off?

JKSandy

There are three CRA's all with their own way of reporting individuals credit file; why would any company take the time to format data three different ways? It's the CRA's responsibility to present the data in the format they chose.


As far as I am aware lenders do report monthly however the inconsistencies seem to be when the CRA's actual report the updates.

WorkingTowardsDebtFree

Ultimately though, it's rows of data in tables. Companies agree to report data in order to be able to search it.

Either way round though - whether the companies format the data to a CRAs requirement, or the CRAs format it after receiving it, mapping will take place and the data will be in the CRAs database in the format they require.

It makes much, much, much more sense for a company to dump the data in the format each CRA wants as the CRAs databases and schema are much more likely to stay constant and consistent than individual companies. Each company has to dump the data regardless - they have to get it out of their database in a format each CRA can accept and read - so it makes sense to format it so it can be uploaded too.

Of course - just because it makes more sense to do it this way (from a data and process perspective), I'm guessing it's the other way round - eg CRAs have thousands of different processes to re-arrange data provided to fit their schema, and every time a company changes their own schema / database each CRA has to update their own handling of that data. Perfect excuses for delays and inaccuracies?

InsideInsurance

Its not pure crunching time, it also includes a lot of time for manual reviews of exception reporting and adjusting and then rerunning etc.

Banking systems (and insurance) certainly are old and antiquated but often they are actually highly efficient at doing what they were originally built to do. In certain ways more so than modern systems. The problem is that they now need to do more than what they originally were built to do and changing these antiquated systems is difficult, expensive and often involves a lot of cellotape and string to get it to work with modern technologies/ methodologies.

The cost for replacing these systems are astronomical. Yes you do often ultimately get a positive ROI but the repay period typically isnt short. The actual issue however is only in part the business case and is more often the high level of risk involved. Their core system is highly efficient at processing the many million daily transactions and has done so for 20+ years. Replace it and you could find a tiny error that costs billions to fix.

To switch to insurance as this is more my area than banking, the systems used are made up of many components from the rating engine (prices the policies), issuing system (creates the documents/ correspondence etc), claims management, general CRM, finance, policy administration etc.

A former client wanted to replace their rating engine and their document system as both were 25 years old. Rating engine's ROI was easy to make positive but the cost was around £45m. After 3 years they got into Sys Test and after spending all that money and despite the vendors promises it was able to deal with a 1/4 the number of requests per minute than the old mainframe and that was without actually creating a much more complex rating processes which was the core reason for buying it in the first place. Unfortunately I left before they resolved the problems and never heard if it was put into production or canned.

The letter system was more complex ROI because whilst everyone said it was stupid that the old system cost £50,000 to change a single word on a letter there was little appetite in Marketing to actually commit to bigger sales as the £30m to replace it would cover a lot of letter changes. It took 4 years to eventually get into place but that was mainly business case issues.

The same client also wanted to replace their claims systems, a consultancy was selected to assist and a 5 year programme designed at a cost of around £120m in total (from memory). The CEO offered the consultancy a blank cheque of to condense it into a year but they refused saying that they felt the 5 year programme was too aggressive and risky and had themselves proposed 7 years. Again dont know the final outcome but certainly 8 years on the programme was still ongoing (the consultancy only provided 1 guy for a short period in the end rather than the large team originally proposed).