Credit score up by 105 after a little sleuthing

Happyjaw

I'm sharing this in case anyone else might be enduring low credit due to poor practices.
In 2007 I moved into my house and I contacted BT to set up my landline and internet. It's a long story on it's own but after 5 months and 17 appointments where no one showed up and £120 compensation we ran off for a long and happy relationship with another provider.
A few years ago I checked my credit score on Experian and Equifax with a view to remortgaging... it wasn't amazing but it would do. Which seemed to make sense in some respects, there's only my mortgage and a small amount of student loan outstanding, I don't have any other debt, my bills are paid on time and so on. I'm cautious with money after getting into horrible debt at a young age and having to appear in court to have a court order for debt management put in place on my 21st birthday. I saved for my car. I put money aside to pay for disasters like the boiler last winter. You get the picture, I'm a low risk, low credit taking customer who pays. Credit score bore.
There was nothing indicative of outstanding or long term debt on my credit score.

Last year I opened an account on Clearscore and saw £114 telecommunications bill. I checked my mobile and landline accounts and couldn't match up the figure. I checked the history and it said I'd had this debt for years. I didn't recognise the account and I couldn't track it down. I spent several hours over several days contacting BT who I suspected were the cause, it seemed familiar as the connection and installation fee. Unfortunately due to the scripted call centres and poor training the staff on many calls insulted me in many different ways, telling me I was wrong, no such account existed, I must have made a mistake and various other rather stupid comments. I was mysteriously disconnected many times too, after all I had an unscripted and unsolicited enquiry which would chew up an awful lot of time on a single call, that doesn't look good for stats. After several days, holding on calls connected in queues to lines which closed whilst I was still waiting but didn't let me know, being passed from one ignorant person to another and no one had a clue what to do I gave up with them. I contacted the Ombudsman who urged me to write to BT, puttting the onus of responsiblity on them to locate the account and within a specific time frame. I did that and BT called back, just in the nick of time before I escalated the case to the Ombudsman. Then nothing. Radio silence. They'd asked me to be patient whilst they investigated and because they'd finally acknowledged the contact I became less alert about it and time passed.
I became busier than usual with work and I didn't follow up and then when work settled again I remembered and contacted BT again who gave me the same run around.
So, thoroughly ticked off, having never had any success with BT in resolving the phone line which was never connected, I wrote directly to the CEO and my email was picked up by a specialist team. In one week they had found the account, identified it was never closed and had been put on a default register and because their last action with a debt agency (who I bounced back to BT pointing out it had never been connected) had been in 2013 it was still showing as active as a debt on my credit score. Despite my refusing the debt they never did anything about it, neither to pursue or rectify it. However, finally BT removed the incorrect default from their files and compensated me, again.
In the middle of all that I had to contact Experian/Equifax to have them contact BT direct to prove that the information was incorrect so it could be removed.
So, it's taken years of damage to my credit score, it took hours and hours of pushing BT, very little time with the credit score companies and two days ago my score jumped up by 105 points which took me from below average to above average.
I want to celebrate! :T:beer:
It turns out after all that my careful spending doesn't make me the credit score bore I thought I was, it was actually a huge company's error 9 years ago which was dragging at my heels.

So, I would urge you to find any inaccuracies, pursue them, don't let companies hide behind poor customer service staff or a lack of understanding. Have the credit score companies help you with the detailed information they hold, have them query directly with alleged creditors and maybe your score isn't in the doldrums either.

19lottie82

But your score is meaningless -No one sees it apart from you. It doesn't matter one jot.......

[Deleted User]

Well done on correcting your file.

But do remember to ignore the credit scores you're given.

greyroofer

19lottie82 That's nice!!

Someone has managed to remove black marks from their credit score due to a huge faceless horrible organisation and that's how you respond to another human being. What a bitter person you are.

Well done! I'd feel well chuffed!!