Credit Reports - Can lenders see things individuals can't?

creditagenciesareajoke

I've had a long standing complaint with an energy provider from many years ago where they incorrectly placed late payments on my credit file with 1 credit agency which they will just not remove.

The account was showing as being registered to my current address so I informed the credit agency that this was incorrect. They then queried with the company who didn't respond in over a month so they "removed the disputed account from the Credit Report" and the account disappeared the next day.


After a few weeks the company responded to say the information was correct and the credit agency confirmed to me that they would "remove the note that we added stating that the information was in dispute within 24 hours" This note was never visible to me on my report and over a week has passed and the account has not reappeared on my credit report.


My question is: are there notes and accounts that are on your credit report that are visible to lenders but you can't see? Or have I just got lucky and they've forgotten to add the account back?


I’m slightly suspicious as my credit score with the agency hasn’t gone up at all (was already well above average even with the late payments) and I did a few eligibility checks for credit cards and got mixed results, 95% chance with 1 provider and 50% or below with the rest.


The account has never been on my report with other agencies where my score is near perfect, I'm on the electoral roll, have a 2 or 3 long standing accounts on my file that have all been perfectly maintained but when I've completed eligibility checks.


Does anyone have any experience with this kind of thing? Any help or advise would be greatly appreciated.

[Deleted User]

Sounds as if the account hasn't been added back on - or will show at the next refresh, where you would be able to see it.

You can't use your credit score as a measure of anything.

GingerBob_3

My question is: are there notes and accounts that are on your credit report that are visible to lenders but you can't see?

You probably won't get a definitive answer to this - because the truth is probably 'yes'. The only way you'll be able to find out is to hit the CRAs with a Subject Access Request. In theory that should return absolutely everything the CRAs hold against you.

boo_star

GingerBob wrote: »

You probably won't get a definitive answer to this - because the truth is probably 'yes'. The only way you'll be able to find out is to hit the CRAs with a Subject Access Request. In theory that should return absolutely everything the CRAs hold against you.

There may be confidential information contained in the notes. A Subject Access Request won't reveal this though, they're entitled to redact anything like that.

GingerBob_3

boo_star wrote: »

There may be confidential information contained in the notes. A Subject Access Request won't reveal this though, they're entitled to redact anything like that.

Are they? So what precisely are they entitled to redact? Whatever they feel like? Rather goes against the whole concept of SARs if this is true.

creditagenciesareajoke

Many thanks for the responses and information. Still no sign of the account on my file so I may have been very lucky. I'll give the subject access requests a go to see if it shows up there.


I know that the CRA scores don't matter at all but I was just using their score as a gauge to guess if the account had disappeared completely or just from my view. Whilst it's just a number that they make up and lenders pay no attention to, I would have thought that it would increase materially if late payments dropped off.

rtho782

GingerBob wrote: »

Are they? So what precisely are they entitled to redact? Whatever they feel like? Rather goes against the whole concept of SARs if this is true.

Because what they actually do is ask you to provide all your addresses, send you the info they hold on you at those addresses, and nothing else.

They then provide lenders with links to other people who they suspect could be you, e.g. someone else with the same name over the other side of the country with debt. But they didn't show this to you because you didn't put that as your address.

So the lenders do see more, they see a load of conjecture on the part of the CRA that can impact you.

Thrugelmir

creditagenciesareajoke wrote: »

My question is: are there notes and accounts that are on your credit report that are visible to lenders but you can't see? .

They'll simply apply a flag to indicate a customer dispute. Up to the enquirer to pursue this further.