Dispute ruined credit - can I fix it?

beeshaped

Hi

Believe it or not this is a summary; the whole thing is very convoluted. Tl;dr at bottom.

When I was at university I had a rolling monthly SIM-only contract. I lost my phone and called Vodafone to cancel the SIM card completely because I was buying a 2 year phone contract to replace my missing phone. They confirmed verbally that it was cancelled. No mention was made about anything further.

Unfortunately I was young and extremely stupid and never checked my bank statement - only the balance. A year later I noticed they had continued to charge me £20 a month for 12 months. I called Vodafone to ask why, as my contract was cancelled and they admitted that I had called, that the SIM had been deactivated but that another had been sent out and never activated. They told me I was being charged £20 a month for that because I hadn't written to them to cancel my monthly rolling contract. I pointed out that no one had asked me to write to them, during the previous call, and that I was not made aware of any replacement SIM or billed for the new SIM. They said they had been sending bills by text message to the new, inactive SIM because I was signed up for text alerts. They refused to discuss the matter of a refund.

On my dad's advice, I called my bank and got them to recall the funds on the basis that they were not authorised. £240 was taken from Vodafone and credited my account. I now regret this.

What followed was months of Vodafone being unable to see from their system what had occurred and never being able to get hold of a consistent representative from Vodafone. Each demand for money that came through was for a different figure and they could never explain where that figure was generated from. It ended up being over £400 in the space of about 6 weeks because they started claiming I had never paid for any of my phone contracts with them, at all. I only had one bank account at the time and was assured that if I printed off all of my statements and took them into my local branch, that person could confirm what I had and had not paid. Despite this being highly invasive, I did so. Absolutely nothing came of it.

They referred my case to Fredpay. I wrote a letter to Fredpay with dates of everything that had happened in lots of detail. They didn't want to discuss anything but my payment.

My credit score has since been absolutely ruined. It is now saying I'm owing somewhere in the region of £350 and I have no idea where that figure came from. I haven't contacted them since approximately 2011/2012 and have since moved house (they have my parents' address on their records). The issue has never been that I couldn't pay, but that they wouldn't address my dispute at all and keep making up numbers and stories that are completely untrue. I have my money back, so I'm not aware of being able to take any legal action as the only issue is my credit score.

I tried writing to either Experian or Equifax (can't recall - I might have a record in my file or this might be the only thing I didn't save, as it was done via an online form) to have a note added to my credit report and they just said they couldn't, but that they had contacted Vodafone. All that lead to was another letter chasing payment. (Thanks, Credit Agency!)

The issue is that my partner and I want to buy a house. My credit score is otherwise impeccable and this is actually ruining our lives. We're afraid to bind our scores together because mine is so bad and are worried this will ruin any good mortgage offers. I used to be opposed to "letting them win" but now I have to admit they have beaten me and I just want it over with. I've done all the sensible credit building stuff and it is working, but too slowly.

Tl;dr Disagreement rather than money issues led to a default. Spiralled out of control in my student days (2011ish) as Vodafone so uncooperative/unorganised/inconsistent. Have a file of correspondence. Now want mortgage and credit score is a mess despite otherwise good record.

My questions now are:
- how long until this comes off my credit score and does writing to them again reset that time period?
- if I pay this off in full, will it show as "settled" or "satisfied", by default? (I understand one fixes your score and the other doesn't?)
- is there any way to negotiate the better option (settled/satisfied) from Fredpay/Vodafone? Do they have any power to do that?
- is there anyone that can hold them accountable for this? I realise I probably messed up by not checking my account etc but from the moment I took the money back they have been impossible to deal with as they started accusing me of missing payments which I have proof I have been paid and everything became a total mess.
- any other advice?

I know I was an idiot so please don't point it out again...

Thanks so much for reading and for any help.

fermi

Presumably it is a default? If so, that and every trace of the account will disappear from your credit report 6 years from the original default date, no matter what you do or don't do.

If paid it would be marked as satisfied, which does little or nothing to help as a default is the overriding factor.

Did you take this to the ombudsman? If not, you may be out of time now?

beeshaped

Unfortunately I didn't write to the ombudsman. Vodafone said they were going to take me to court (which I now assume was only a scare tactic) and I was quite happy to go to court to get the matter resolved. I would have been willing and able to pay if a court found me to be in the wrong. Unfortunately, despite their threats they never took me and then, yes, I think I was out of time by the time I'd realised how much of an affect this would have on my life.

rtho782

At this point, your best bet is to put this down to life experience and move on.

You're way too late to take this to the ombudsman, but it might be worth a shot you never know.

Other than that, wait until 6 years have passed and it will go away, there is zero point in paying it off.

It would be very unusual for a company to bother going to court for a debt of this size.

You say 2011, this means it will vanish next year, so 1 more year of deposit saving.

If you want to get a mortgage now you'll need to go through a broker and you won't get the best rates, and it will link you financially to your partner.

Vodafone

Hi beeshaped,

If you send us an email here, we can get this looked into for you.

To access the form you'll need to enter the code WRT135.

As well as stating your query in the question box, please also quote "MSE Forum".

Once sent, you'll receive an automated reply with a reference number. Post it on here and I’ll check I've received it.

Kind regards,

Sarah

Social Media Operations

Vodafone UK