Abbreviated name impacting credit score

Yellow246

Hi all,

This is my first post on the forum as I haven't been able to find much guidance on this anywhere, so I'm hoping someone might be able to help or point me in the right direction.

I recently had a look around for personal loans and credit cards. I've got a solid credit score, I never miss payments on mortgages, bills and finance arrangements (like my car) and all the pre-eligibility checks indicated I would be able to get decent credit, so I was quite surprised to be consistently turned down or offered poorer rates on application.

Like many people, I'm known by an abbreviated name instead of the one on my birth certificate - think Joe Bloggs instead of Joseph Bloggs. When I went back through the application process, I realised that I had enter my abbreviated name (Joe) for the eligibility checks, where as when I got to the stage of applying with a lender, they wanted my full name as it is on my passport, so at this stage I updated it to Joseph. When I updated it to Joseph, the offers of certain cards disappeared. Initially, I couldn't get my head around this, so then tried again but left my name as Joe at the stage with the lender, and the offer stayed.

I then went through the eligibility checks again. I kept all details exactly the same (salary, expenditure etc), apart from my name. Whenever I used my full, passport name in the eligibility checks, I was told I wouldn't be eligible for certain cards or rates. When I reverted back to my abbreviated name, the offers and better rates came back.

I'm assuming this is all down to my details on credit files somewhere and I've now double checked my name against various companies. My energy, water and council tax is all under the name Joe Bloggs. My mortgage and bank accounts are under Joseph Bloggs. I suspect I may be on the electoral register as Joe Bloggs too. So I think I might be in a situation where lenders think Joseph Bloggs pays the mortgage at my house, but a different guy called Joe Bloggs lives there and pays for the heating and for the bins to be collected.

I was going to update my energy, water, council tax and electoral roll to all be Joseph and then be mindful to always use that for everything in the future, but before I do, I was wondering if anyone has ever been in the same situation as this? As I mentioned above, I'm pretty certain it has to be because of the names I used, as that was the only thing different in each application.

cymruchris

My understanding of how the credit reference agencies operate is that they have a fuzzy logic in place for this kind of scenario that links different versions of names together at the same address.

So you could be:

Mr Joseph Bloggs
Mr Joe Bloggs
Mr J Bloggs
Mr J D Bloggs
Mr Joe Dean Bloggs
Mr Joe D Bloggs

etc.

And it should link you all together.

If on your credit reports you see all the variations of your name on one report - the fuzzy logic is working in terms of tying all your aliases together.

Not sure how your offers change by using variations of your name though.

Usually people don't achieve the 'headline typical' APR rate as there's something else in their files that the lender may not be so positive over - such as the current levels of indebtedness - current financial commitments - payment history etc. 

Having a solid credit score means nothing - as it's only you that ever sees it (See the sticky at the top of the credit score forum for more detail on that).