Deafault from yorkshire water

Leedslad424

Can someone help me??

Over the weekend I opened a letter from the water authority that was posted to a new property I live it however it was for a previous property that I used to rent. The letter was dated for april this year and advised that if I did not make a payment they would enter a default against my credit record.

I called them and protested and they advised they had already registered a default over a year ago and this was just an extension. I had issues with them at my current property because there was a leak and I was billed over a £1000 for a quarter and I thought I had dealt with everything and pt it to bed so I did not see them as important.

Does this affect my credit. I have looked on my credit file and I have 999 which I thought was the highest credit score however I did get turned down for a loan last year and I was surprised. This really worries me because I did not think I could get a black mark for credit from utilties.

Any help would be greatly appreciated

Tixy

Utility companies can now usually report to the credit ref agencies and enter a default (although it does depend on when you opened the account with them as it is only relatively new accounts where they got permission to report to the CRAs).

Have you just checked Experian? it may be that they have filed the default on either your Equifax or callcredit report.

Do you agree/accept that you may have an unpaid bill from the older property? You need to get them to send you evidence of the debt, details of the period of water supply it relates to and copies of the invoices. You could call them, or I would write to them perhaps using the prove it letter template - Letter when you know nothing about about the debt - AKA "Prove it" letter

Buzby

Your score is meaningless - you need to check the files of all three to get a true picture of what information is bring retained about you.

GingerBob_3

Yes, Yorkshire Water have taken it upon themselves to report their customers to the CRAs, and potentially f**k up your credit worthiness.

Remember that you don't enter into a contract with the water companies and there are no T&Cs. The CRAs speak with forked tongues on this matter. On the one hand they'll tell you that all organisations need your permission to report to the CRAs, then with the other they'll tell you they don't. What is for certain - they DO need your permission to snoop on you (run a credit check). So write to them, explicitly prohibiting them from doing so.

Also, DO NOT furnish them with your full name or DoB; make it difficult for these leeches.

Thrugelmir

Leedslad424 wrote: »

Does this affect my credit. I have looked on my credit file and I have 999 which I thought was the highest credit score however I did get turned down for a loan last year and I was surprised. This really worries me because I did not think I could get a black mark for credit from utilties.

Did you vacate the rental property without paying the bill?

BillJones

GingerBob wrote: »

Yes, Yorkshire Water have taken it upon themselves to report their customers to the CRAs, and potentially f**k up your credit worthiness.

"Waah, it's not fair, that company's telling the truth about what I did!"

GingerBob_3

BillJones wrote: »

"Waah, it's not fair, that company's telling the truth about what I did!"

It might be telling the truth about what you did, but for others it seems like it isn't.

You can't get away from the fact that as more companies are bribed by the CRAs to report on their customers, the greater the chances of erroneous data reported.