Ongoing mystery default

kaybellina

Please help, advice on what to do would be very much appreciated!


I have looked at my credit report before and although my credit score was pretty dire, I put that down to some old (2013) defaults when I was more careless and a pretty high utilisation percentage that I've been working on decreasing.


However today I thought I'd give Callcredit a try, and have found that their credit report is *much* more detailed and I have an ongoing default of £56 to Vodafone - dating back to 2011! No wonder my credit rating is shot.


I know what this is. I got a contract android phone from Vodaphone around that time. I returned it within 24 hours as I hated it and promptly got an iPhone deal from o2. Evidently they never cancelled the contract. I wasn't advised at the time of returning that there wasn't a cooling off period or anything like that - I remember the sales assistant just looked gutted (I guess they get commission)


So - where do I go from here? Do I contact them and ask very politely if they would consider removing all the defaults? I don't owe the money but I'd pay it if it meant having 6 years of defaults taken off, can they do that?


Thanks!

[Deleted User]

Contact them and dispute it. The only positive, if you're not successful, is that ill drop off this year.

Don't confuse your 3 credit reports and scores. It's not that Call Credit is more detailed - it's that the account is reported to them. It doesn't interact with any of the other reports, so you need to check all three separately. Ignore all of the scores equally.

kaybellina

Thanks zx81. It's not an old default though - the first one is in 2011, but there are defaults every month right up to the current day. Even if it was settled and closed now, I'm guessing I would still have to wait 6 years for the last default to drop off - they don't go all at once?

[Deleted User]

No. It's 6 years from default. The others are just status updates.

Sparx

OP to clarify zx81 means you only have one default. You don't have multiple defaults for the single account not being paid off.

You could contact Vodafone and explain the situation, possibly follow the complaints procedure if you feel you have a strong case. Alternatively you could leave it another year and let it drop off, as you'll be at the 6 year mark then.

sourcrates

The entry will have a "date of default" on it, six years after that date, the default will be gone.
As others have said, you can only be defaulted once for a debt, the red markers every month are just the status markers.

You should complain to Vodaphone about the incorrect entry though.