Cleaning up credit file after BR

TMinside

Hello all,

So last year April 2016 I was declared bankrupt and have now thankfully been discharged in April 2017. I've signed up to Experian to look over my credit report and try and clear it up.

I've notice that on both Experian and Noodle my old accounts are still showing as open and defaulted. I know for a fact Nationwide Current and Visa "should" be closed as they no longer show on my online banking. My question is; Why would these still be showing, surely they should now be closed? - How can I get rid of them?

My score is 319, not sure if that's good considering I've only been discharged since April?
Appreciate any advise given, screenshot below;

LEK

Ignore the credit score on Experian, and also on any of the credit scoring websites - it's totally made up. Lenders don't see any kind of score either. They simply see your report details.

Moving forward what you want to do now to clean up your credit file is to write to all of your creditors notifying them of your discharge, also include a discharge certificate as proof as some may ask for this (You can request from your OR via email for free). Also and this is just as important - ensure that they change any incorrect default dates so that it shows you defaulted on the account the same day you went BR, i.e. 01.04.2016. If your default date is before your BR date, this is fine anyway.

Once you've done this it may take a few weeks for the changes to reflect on your credit file, but you should start seeing all your old accounts being marked as settled or partially settled.

Liam.

TMinside

Thanks for this. That's very clear.

Do you know of a service/website or person I can contact, and pay them to clear up my credit file for me? I really don't have the time to do this currently.

Kind Regards

LEK

TMinside wrote: »

Thanks for this. That's very clear.

Do you know of a service/website or person I can contact, and pay them to clear up my credit file for me? I really don't have the time to do this currently.

Kind Regards

You can do it all yourself, honestly it won't take long - the only potentially long part to it is waiting for your creditors to update the records / alerting the credit reference agencies. Some of them out there and and like in my case, I was able to email a couple of them regarding all this but the likes of the banks will want postal corrospondance only.

The first thing to do is look up the head office addresses for your creditors - specifically the debt management team if there is one. There is also a pinned thread on here that supplies a template to use when writing to your old creditors, simply edit it and add in your relevant details - then post it off, along with your discharge certificate. That's it.

All I did when I wrote to all of mine last week was create a simple A4 document that contained the following:

All of my past account details relating to the debt i.e. full name, addresses, acc. no.
Outlined that I was discharged on XYZ date
To please update the record
To also alter the default date so it tallies up with the original date of bankruptcy
Kindly requesting that they mark the account as settled / partially settled as required.

Lastly - certainly do not be swayed towards paying anyone or a company to do it all for you, it won't be worth it and there is a high probability that your creditors may not honor the request due to the Data Protection Act. Believe me, with one of my past creditors - it took three phone calls to attempt to find out a specific piece of information that I required in order to write to them and I kept failing the security checks over the phone due to them incorrectly having a previous address on record. The likes of banks take anti-fraud procedures very seriously over the phone and via post too.

Liam.

GeoffSpar8

It is not true that lenders do not see Experian's credit score. Those lenders that use their Delphi product (and most do) will see something very similar.

TheGardener

Don't pay someone to do it - it costs no more than a bit of your time and some registered post letters.

Use the template letters in this sticky post (it may look like an old post but it is no less effective)
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/677875

I found them very effective - I suspect many banks recognise these as MSE templates and respond to them quite quickly.

Potbellypig

TMinside wrote: »

Hello all,

So last year April 2016 I was declared bankrupt and have now thankfully been discharged in April 2017. I've signed up to Experian to look over my credit report and try and clear it up.

I've notice that on both Experian and Noodle my old accounts are still showing as open and defaulted. I know for a fact Nationwide Current and Visa "should" be closed as they no longer show on my online banking. My question is; Why would these still be showing, surely they should now be closed? - How can I get rid of them?

My score is 319, not sure if that's good considering I've only been discharged since April?
Appreciate any advise given, screenshot below;

It makes no odds whether they are defaulted or settled. Your bankruptcy is the one that's staying on your file for the next 6 years.

[Deleted User]

It DOES matter, OP please ensure they're sorted properly by following the advise above.

I have one creditor who messed with my file for so long (incorrectly insisting it was not appropriate to mark as part-satisfied), I had to go via the FOS & ICO and got quite sizeable compensation for it.

Another keeps resetting the status to defaulted and the balance back to 3k, then cleans it up to £0 for a few months, before it inevitably makes it back to £3k outstanding!

The above two instances are (I hope!) rare experiences - most people shouldn't have that.

To give you an idea of how it can all be done from your computer, and quickly - I didn't even write to my creditors (other than the two pains above!) - I simply signed up for Equifax free trial (via quidco, got paid £6), and went through the accounts one by one, disputing all of them and attaching discharge evidence to the online support cases. Took about an hour to submit all the cases (I had a LOT of accounts) - in the weeks and months to follow I was getting notifications it had been sorted, one by one.

You will also need to check Experian. However, I'd start with Equifax and leave it 2 to 3 months after Equifax is sorted before tackling Experian.

Experian will not re-generate your report once a dispute is settled (i.e. you need to keep paying £2 or £9.99 per month etc). Equifax you can take the free trial, get your report, cancel your free trial and you'll STILL get a statutory report EVERY time a credit eventually replies. It makes the process a lot easier. IF you login and see it's not been regenerated (as I did a few times), just reply to the support ticket saying "thanks, however the account still shows as defaulted on my report...?" or similar.... and they will manually re-generate your report again.

Yes bankruptcy is a major issue - and the poster above is correct in that sense - but people 100% need to do all they can to help themselves, and that includes sorting out default & satisfaction dates to ensure they aren't seen to be STILL having problems (i.e. outstanding debts and having not 'learnt the lesson') - otherwise it can mess you up further down the line - in terms of credit-rebuilding and repeated visits, calls and letters from DCAs!