EU final year university student with default

Ciaran92

Hello,

I can safely say that I've had better days..so to explain my situation:

I am an EU citizen and I have been doing my whole degree in the UK. In 2012 I had a bank account with the bank Santander which supposedly I thought I closed by July 2013, as I went back home for the summer afterwards. Due to health issues I had to take half a year out of uni which ended up being a whole year. Fastforward to 2014 and by the time I go back to the UK I start getting mails from debt collectors enquiring that I owe Santander 130 pounds.

Obviously I thought of it as a mistake, my account has been closed! Except it was not. Somehow the fact that I walked in the branch, gave my card back and signed a paper did not mean that my account was closed, and since the account had a 5 pounds charge per month a debt of 130 pounds accumulated in the account. Apparently I was receiving mails about this on my old address from 2012. In January 2015 I call Santander trying to solve the issue, cause I thought there was a mistake. However they tell me they do not have any records of me trying to close the account and that they will call me back in a couple of weeks. I receive no calls, the debtors stop bugging (perfect! I think, case closed!). But it was not.

Fast forward to now, a different collector company started harrassing me again. I called Santander and tried to get to a hold of the situation, I explained to them everything and got as a reply that they will write off my debt and my charges will be of 0 (that is something they did on the spot apparently, as I have checked in one of their branches a few hours after the phone call). I call them again for more information and they tell me that my account default was now settled or satisfied, and that was it.

At first I was happy cause I thought my problems were over, but after some googling I found that an account default is an horrible thing to have on your credit profile ( Didn't even know something like that existed) and it might impact my chance to get jobs in the UK for the next years.

The default is from November 2014 so a year ago, Is there a way for me to try and get it removed from my credit record? I have never been in debt my whole life, I do not have loans and my family and I have been working hard to make sure everything could be paid in time and now I have to be punished till 2020 for something I wasn't even aware of! I would have no problem paying 130 pounds but they didn't even offer me that, and to my understand the default would still be there regardless. I honestly do not know of what to do I haven't been in this country for that long and the fact that my life opportunities here are heavily hidnered is a very scary thought.

Is there a way to get the default removed in any way considering the circumstances? if I knew of the charges at the time I would have closed the account immediately, but they gave me no phonecalls and I presume that they kept sending mails to the address I was living in 2012. Only collectors started contacting me on the phone and new address once the default was already settled which I find very unfair I don't know what to do.

sourcrates

Hi,
The default will only be a problem if you try to obtain credit, if you don't need credit, it won't affect you at all.
You can write to the creditor, and ask them if, as a gesture of goodwill, since they found in favour of your complaint, if they would also remove the default.

They are under no obligation to do so, as your credit file should represent how your account has been conducted, but they can do if they are so inclined.

Ciaran92

Hi sourcrates,

thank you so much for your reply. Regarding cancellation they already told me that they cannot do it, they also told me that they cannot send me any confirmation of my default being settled (which I found strange). However I will try to call them again tomorrow to see if there might be a slime chance of them removing it from my credit file if I pay it off.

Through some google research I have found that employeers do screening of their candidates and that includes credit reports, I am applying for big 4s this year in consulting and having a default might cost me the job if I get past the interviews!! From what I found online defaults can have a really bad impact.

I doubt I will need credit for the next 5 years as I am not planning on settling in but to build my career, I am worried about not being able to open bank accounts and have problems getting jobs offers.

sourcrates

Ciaran92 wrote: »

Hi sourcrates,

thank you so much for your reply. Regarding cancellation they already told me that they cannot do it, they also told me that they cannot send me any confirmation of my default being settled (which I found strange). However I will try to call them again tomorrow to see if there might be a slime chance of them removing it from my credit file if I pay it off.

Through some google research I have found that employeers do screening of their candidates and that includes credit reports, I am applying for big 4s this year in consulting and having a default might cost me the job if I get past the interviews!! From what I found online defaults can have a really bad impact.


I doubt I will need credit for the next 5 years as I am not planning on settling in but to build my career, I am worried about not being able to open bank accounts and have problems getting jobs offers.

As I said before, a default will only be a problem if you require credit.

Any potential employer will not have access to your credit report, they will only see the public information section, they cannot see your personal financial information, so they will not see your default.

As regards bank accounts, most people can open a basic bank account, with no borrowing facility, without been subject to any credit checks, so again, that should not be a problem for you.

Ciaran92

Again thank you so much for your reply!

I understand what you are saying, and on some regards I saw that on site like Experian employees requesting a screening are only given public information ( e.g. ccjs, bankruptcy).
However I have found a lot of discording information about this. In a lot of cases I read of people being worried about the effect of one or multiple defaults could have on their credit report screening. So does every employer have the right to see defaults on your account? And what is actually public information? From what I have read employers ask candidates to sign in order to have their credit report fully checked and refusing to do so means no job either way. I also found that mostly companies working in the financial sectors will be very strict on the credit report screening, while companies in other fields would not be. Is this true?

Sorry for raising doubts but I have read a lot of contrasting opinion on this matter.