Am I due compensation?

trybeforeyoubuy

I have recently had a piece of inaccurate information removed from my credit file after two years.

I notified the creditor (Marbles) in August 2020 that my account with them was listed as in default, when in fact it was paid off and closed. 

No action was taken. I have been refused credit several times due to this and have evidence in the form of rejection emails from other credit applications. 

I also approached Equifax back in 2020 to raise the dispute, who advised me to resolve it with the creditor who would need to report the change. 

I sent Marbles proof that the account balance had been settled in August 2020, firstly via post with a covering letter which they claimed not to have received, then via email after numerous calls to customer services explaining the situation over and over before finally being provided with an email address to send documents to.

My most recent credit update is now showing the account as closed and my score has improved, but what about the past two years? The wasted time I've spent trying to get this resolved, the credit refusals that have negatively impacted my score based on their inaccurate reporting?

I've suffered through this process and feel I have grounds to seek compensation. Having done some light research I'm not sure how to go about this, so I'm hoping to get some advice here if anyone has been in a similar situation and been successfully compensated. 

eskbanker

There's nothing stopping you from raising a formal complaint with Marbles and escalating to FOS (and/or ICO) if they don't resolve it to your satisfaction, but I suspect that it's unlikely that you'd secure anything other than a token goodwill gesture to cover distress and inconvenience, unless you can provide evidence of tangible losses, such as additional costs incurred directly as a result of not being able to take out credit (that you can reasonably demonstrate you would have had access to).

As frequently pointed out on here, your credit score is a meaningless made-up number, so a lower score in itself isn't a valid reason for a complaint or compensation....

trybeforeyoubuy

Thank you. The credit score itself isn't a concern, but the two years of refusals based on false information has caused tangible setbacks. 

I'll wait for Equifax to close the dispute and see if Marbles offer anything by way of apology, then take it from there. 

phillw

eskbanker said:

your credit score is a meaningless made-up number,

It might be meaningless to you, but it's not made up. It really is a credit score. What that means is another matter.

[Deleted User]

phillw said:

eskbanker said:

your credit score is a meaningless made-up number,

It might be meaningless to you, but it's not made up. It really is a credit score. What that means is another matter.

It's meaningless in the sense that unlike say in the US it is not a factor in lending decisions. It's made up in the sense that your score here is not seen as a representation of your credit worthiness, a high score doesn't mean you will get credit, a low score doesn't mean you won't

US credit score is be all and end all, you can see on credit issuer sites what card level you will get for your score e.g. 900-999 might be Platinum, 800-899 is Gold, 700-799 is Silver etc. In the UK the number is a pointless gimmick akin to a horoscope as no lender ever sees it and you cannot judge anything about your likelihood of success for a card based on the score

phillw

Deleted_User said:
It's meaningless in the sense that unlike say in the US it is not a factor in lending decisions. It's made up in the sense that your score here is not seen as a representation of your credit worthiness, a high score doesn't mean you will get credit, a low score doesn't mean you won't

All three of these are true.

It's not made up.
It's not meaningless.
It's not used in lending decisions.

So maybe just stick with "it's not used in lending decisions" in the future.

[Deleted User]

phillw said:

Deleted_User said:
It's meaningless in the sense that unlike say in the US it is not a factor in lending decisions. It's made up in the sense that your score here is not seen as a representation of your credit worthiness, a high score doesn't mean you will get credit, a low score doesn't mean you won't

All three of these are true.

It's not made up.
It's not meaningless.
It's not used in lending decisions.

So maybe just stick with "it's not used in lending decisions" in the future.

I already showed you why it IS made up (it has no correlation with your credit worthiness) , why it IS meaningless (having a score of xyz has no bearing on whether you will get credit or not) - both of which are logically true because it's not used in lending decisions.

I won't stick with saying something false, thanks all the same.

eskbanker

phillw said:

eskbanker said:

your credit score is a meaningless made-up number,

It might be meaningless to you, but it's not made up. It really is a credit score. What that means is another matter.

It's made up, in the sense that various companies generate such numbers using opaque and proprietary algorithms in such a way that they can't realistically be verified - the fact that each of them can be labelled as a credit score doesn't actually negate that.

However, rather than being some tedious semantic issue, the above comment was included specifically to support a wider point being made in the omitted part of the quoted post that "a lower score in itself isn't a valid reason for a complaint or compensation", as OP appeared to be under the impression that changes to such numbers made a difference and would be actionable in some way if applied 'incorrectly'....

Fighter1986

So anyway, the point at hand is OP was subject to false and defamatory information, which the data owner (Newday Cards Ltd) did not resolve in line with their obligations under the DPA 2018 or ICO guidelines, which states any inaccurate information must be corrected within 28 days of the data subject raising the issue to the data owner.

Newday's failure to do this had an adverse effect on the individuals creditworthiness and reputation, and could have had an unquantified negative financial effect on them.

It's impossible to accurately quantify how much of a negative financial impact on you but it is certainly grounds for complaint and recompense. 

Raise as formal complaint to Newday asking for recompense and escalate to FoS and ICO if they fail to comply.

They have to reply within 56 days before you can escalate to FOS and 28 days before you can escalate to ICO.