Utility destroyed my credit rating

leyle88

Im with for a few years now and pay the bill when I recieve it via post. 
Im due to renew my mortgage and decided to look at my credit rating. It went from excellent 900 to 540 poor due to reporting late payment a few times during the 2 years period. I never signed a contract with them and never consented to them accessing my credit file every month and destroying it. I dont owe them anything. I have raised this as a dispute with the credit reference agency and they have raised it with who refuse to delete it as they said the " the details match and that i missed a random months thought out the year.
I explained to that I only pay when I recieve the bill and dont owe them anything. They refuse to amend the file. Is their anything I can do? 

Brie

First off I would suggest moving to another provider.  And pay by direct debit.  If you want to clear your whole bill then look for a variable DD as that's precisely what it will do.  It won't pay the same amount each month which the provider can increase whenever the wind blows from a different direction.

Secondly - no bank looks at your credit rating.  They look at your credit records.  If everything else is fine there's little reason for edf to do you much damage.  If you renew your mortgage with the same bank they'll be looking at what you have done over the last few years in paying them and have little interest in anything else. 

molerat

leyle88 said:

Im with edf for a few years now and pay the bill when I recieve it via post. 
Im due to renew my mortgage and decided to look at my credit rating. It went from excellent 900 to 540 poor due to Edf reporting late payment a few times during the 2 years period. I never signed a contract with them and never consented to them accessing my credit file every month and destroying it. I dont owe them anything. I have raised this as a dispute with the credit reference agency and they have raised it with EDF who refuse to delete it as they said the " the details match and that i missed a random months thought out the year.
I explained to EDF that I only pay when I recieve the bill and dont owe them anything. They refuse to amend the file. Is their anything I can do? 

You used energy so you entered into a deemed contract in accordance with the energy acts. If you are on pay on receipt of bill then you have a certain amount of time to pay, if you pay outside of that time the payment is late and you file will receive a marker accordingly.  You don't have to agree to them reporting your account status to the CRAs, that is only for them to look at your file.  Can you prove that all payments made were within the timescale laid out on the bill ?

born_again

You do not have to sign a contract to have one. You agreed to them supplying you energy. As such that is a contract.
You do not have to consent to them accessing your credit file. It is a given for any company where financial agreements are in place.
If you missed a payment it is a matter of fact. So they do not have to remove them. Only if it was marked in error, such as you had payed the bill, & they still marked it as unpaid.

Did you not notice that you never received a bill, or that you were getting bill bigger than normal & had a message stating late payment?

As a aside that figure of 540 means nothing to  lenders, they never see it. You issue is going to be the unpaid markers on your credit history.

Baldytyke88

I had a relative who successfully sued Yorkshire Water because they put a bad review on his credit rating in error.

leyle88

I never agreed to them to make report to CRA. What can I do if I never agreed ?

itsthelittlethings

leyle88 said:

I never agreed to them to make report to CRA. What can I do if I never agreed ?

I don’t think you have to agree.

leyle88

This seems totally unreasonable. I dont owe them a penny and never made the payment accumulate yet they can register a marker with the cra, this is crazy that it will affect me for the next 6 years similar to being bankrupt. This seems extreme 😳 and doesnt sound fair. I pay on receipt of the bill and to be penaltised for not receiving a bill. This puts me a financially difficult situation with mortgage rates and renewals. 
Its basically like;  jan- ok, feb-ok, march- ok, april- missed ( £143), may-ok, june-ok July-ok, August-missed (£122), sep-ok and so on.
I never missed them they have all been paid but if I didint recieve the bill I didint pay until I did. These went down as missed payments. 

Ayr_Rage

leyle88 said:

This seems totally unreasonable. I dont owe them a penny and never made the payment accumulate yet they can register a marker with the cra, this is crazy that it will affect me for the next 6 years similar to being bankrupt. This seems extreme 😳 and doesnt sound fair. I pay on receipt of the bill and to be penaltised for not receiving a bill. This puts me a financially difficult situation with mortgage rates and renewals. 

It's neither extreme or unfair, it's the way the system works when you take a service from a company, buried in the Ts and Cs there will be a clause regarding how the operation of your account is reported to CRAs.

As above, EDF are your contracted energy supplier.

You can dispute the lack of billing and the dates that your payments were credited and they may correct the record if you can prove you paid on time.

To save future grief suggest you move to Direct Debit Whole Amount Monthly if you can afford larger winter bills, if not regular monthly DD.

eskbanker

What evidence do you have that you didn't see the April and August bills until after their payment due dates?  Are these issued by snail mail or electronically?

GrumpyDil

And late payment markers do not have anywhere near the impact of a bankruptcy.

You do realise that the score is a random number based on the CRA's algorithm which no lender ever sees.

They base decisions on their own assessment of your credit history. And if you remortgage with your existing lender they won't carry out any new assessment.