Will using MyLostAccount unearth a litany of horrors?

shoe_dog

I was interested in using the mylostaccount.org.uk service to see if i had any small change languishing in dormant accounts that relatives may or may not have set up for me when i was a child.

Is there a risk however of the service uncovering any potential financial skeletons i might have in the closet from when i was a little more, let's say, financially wayward in my 20s?

What i mean by this is... i recall having a high street bank account 20 or so years ago that was possibly (but not definitely) in the red when i stopped using it (if it was we're talking a couple of hundred max). I moved around a lot back then - as many young people living in London do - and i don't recall ever hearing from the bank again.

Would MyLostAccount end up biting me in the butt and send high street banks chasing me down for old account issues like this? Or do these types of 'debt' get written off after a certain number of years?

born_again

Any debt is statute barred after 6 years & 5 in Scotland. But they could still chase for it.

I would not worry. Anything from that far back will long have been forgotten about & written off.

PRAISETHESUN

Debts become statute barred after 6/5 years as above, so if the accounts are older then that and you haven't contacted your bank about them in the intervening period to acknowledge the debt you'll be fine. The debt still exists, but it cannot be enforced in court anymore. Given it's age, odds are it'll have been written off years ago.

I'd probably also recommend checking your credit reports from all 3 CRAs (Experian, Equifax and TransUnion) and see if/when defaults/CCJs/etc have been recorded (if at all) if you haven't already, just to see what's being recorded. It might also help track down some accounts you've forgotten about if they are still open.

shoe_dog

PRAISETHESUN said:

I'd probably also recommend checking your credit reports from all 3 CRAs (Experian, Equifax and TransUnion) and see if/when defaults/CCJs/etc have been recorded (if at all) if you haven't already, just to see what's being recorded. It might also help track down some accounts you've forgotten about if they are still open.

Does checking these 3 reports leave any kind of mark on your credit rating?

I think my credit rating is fine, i mean i took out a mortgage 8 years ago amongst a couple of other things and haven't had anything in the way of debt or missed payments for 20 years or more. 

UPDATE: Just checked Experian and my credit rating is 999 Excellent

PRAISETHESUN

There is no impact from checking your own credit file so feel free to go nuts and check it as often as you like. Your credit reports typically get updated once a month so there's little benefit to checking more frequently then that.

But when I say check your credit files, ignore the score. It's a marketing gimmick that no-one except you will ever see. Instead focus on the underlying data, as this is what lenders see, and this is the information that needs to be correct!

Daliah

PRAISETHESUN said:

There is no impact from checking your own credit file so feel free to go nuts and check it as often as you like. Your credit reports typically get updated once a month so there's little benefit to checking more frequently then that.

the actual credit files get updated on an ongoing basis. For example, I can see searches made two days ago. Also, different companies report at different times, see example below, and not all CRAs have, or get, the same information. The searches from 2 days ago only show in my Credit Karma, not in my Experian. On the other hand, Experian shows a lot more hard searches than my Credit Karma.

It's probably just the largely meaningless score which they recalculate once a month.

molerat

If you are "in the system", as you will be having a mortgage etc, then checking your file will not do anything as all your information is already out there for anyone looking for you to find.  Only those that have been off grid for many years would face that problem.