Banks keeping records of old debt

Thrugelmir

FireWyrm wrote: »

Interesting. Perhaps a better form of words would have been 'not widely used or reported to'. Credit Reference Agencies only work if they can gather large amounts of data quickly which can be searched equally quickly. They only really became accessible easily with the advent of computers. In any case, even if you had been naughty some decade and a half ago, the information would have been purged long ago. Modern agencies claim not to hold anything over 6 years though I suspect it is merely archived rather than deleted.

References and account conduct were prerequisites of obtaining finance or credit. Bank managers were like gods. I recall using various trade associations. That used to share data pertaining to bad debtors. Every month a list would be circulated of individuals to steer clear of. Once someone had a bad name the news travelled.

Thrugelmir

FireWyrm wrote: »

Last time I asked the bank (my bank, yours might be different), they said that they do not keep records more than 10 years old and that this is then 'archived' which is not easy to access (allegedly).

I've being using spreadsheets for some 35 years. Maintaining lists has been easy for a very long time.