Compensation for default wrongly applied to account for five years

Cherry16585

Hi everyone,

Hopefully someone can help me!

Over the past five years I have been declined for loans and credit even though I thought my credit rating was reasonably ok - my Experian didn’t have anything other than a couple of missed payments when I was a student so I just put it down to being a result of these.

I have recently found out through another credit referencing agency that I have a default for £1,300 from my bank on my account!!

I have spoken to the bank over the past few weeks trying to hunt down this mystery account and they have never been able to find it. Today they confirmed it was an error and that they will be trying to track it down and remove it from my credit reports.

Once they confirmed it was an error I asked about compensation.... this default has stopped me getting loans, credit cards, car finance and I have never bothered applying for a mortgage because I could even get a £2k loan. The guy on the phone confirmed there would of course be compensation and offered to put me through to someone straight away..... I hesitated and said I thought I would prefer to go away and speak to a lawyer first as this has had a massive impact on my finances over the past few years.

As soon as I mentioned a lawyer he started pressuring me to speak to their team straight away so there is obviously a concern there for them. My issue is I have no idea what sort of amount I should be asking for.... can anyone help? When I add up things like interest rates on poor credit loans etc. it comes to a couple of grand but that doesn't even bring in the inconvenience side of things!

Any help or advice would be fantastic!

JKSandy

"this default has stopped me getting loans, credit cards, car finance and I have never bothered applying for a mortgage because I could even get a £2k loan"


Can you prove that the default is the reason you have been turned down for any credit? Or that You have paid more interest that you should have because of it?


If you can then you can see if you come to a figure and ask for that, they can only say no.

bamgbost

Yes as JKSandy said, you need to prove, the losses. and that it was solely or a huge contributor to you not getting loans, etc.

I had a similar thing 6 mnths ago. with defaults from Natwest and MoneyShop/. Both defaults got removed, and I only received about £200 in total. compensation.

Which I felt was not a lot at all. However, either party would claim that I had other issues with arrears etc, that would not have helped me either way.

So its all about what u can prove! Otherwise they will offer u the bare minimum of a token "goodwill gesture"

DevCoder

You won't be getting "thousands", Id be guessing you would fall into the FOS's moderate band (less than £500). Be prepared to have to prove that you suffered monetary losses due to this and not some other marker or credit decision tree (which since they are internal tot he company would be very difficult to prove).

The bands are discussed here

http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/publications/technical_notes/distress-and-inconvenience.htm#b4

27col

As you have absolutely no idea what, if anything, this marker might have cost you. It seems to me that walking away before even getting getting a figure for the compensation amount was extremely precipitate.
Spending money on a lawyer's opinion is almost certain to be more than even the most generous compensation.

matttye

Don't bother with a lawyer. Get back on the phone and negotiate with them. Explain you've had years of bad credit high interest loans and you believe the default is the reason for that.

You will not get all of the interest you've paid on these loans back because the bank didn't hold a gun to your head and make you apply for them.

Also, why did you not check your credit report before applying for the loans? In my opinion you've been negligent yourself. You didn't bother checking all of your credit reports to see why you were getting only bad credit offers, you simply assumed.

MisterBaxter

I get the feeling it is always going to be difficult to prove actual losses. We see many posts from people with clean credit records being refused credit so how you show that you were refused credit or were offered a less favourable rate because of an erroneous entry is not easy.

I personally think that there should be a flat rate punitive level of compensation payable directly to the consumer for each and every error found, the amount needs to be enough to deter such errors in the first place. It may also deter some of the dubious practices we see.

As already suggested the best option is to go through the banks own complaint's process and put to them what you think your losses may have been and expect to negotiate down from there.

This also shows the importance of obtaining your statutory reports at least annually.

amstel2

If i where you i would look on this as a money making opportunity.

GingerBob_3

matttye wrote: »

Don't bother with a lawyer. Get back on the phone and negotiate with them. Explain you've had years of bad credit high interest loans and you believe the default is the reason for that.

You will not get all of the interest you've paid on these loans back because the bank didn't hold a gun to your head and make you apply for them.

Also, why did you not check your credit report before applying for the loans? In my opinion you've been negligent yourself. You didn't bother checking all of your credit reports to see why you were getting only bad credit offers, you simply assumed.

:rotfl:You shouldn't have to! I think that's the point.


OP - do your best to take the scumbags who blacklisted you to the cleaners. Good luck!