Credit Rating: How it works and How to improve it discussion area

Hi all,

I've read the Credit score article online here. What I couldn't find out is, whether it is worth re-opening an old current account to help show I've had an account for a long time? I closed it last year after not much use but then saw the part where a long standing account can help your score.

I had a dormant account within an agreed overdraft (balance sat at about £248, £250 was the agreed limit)

After a few months dormant the interest on the overdraft resulted in the balance going beyond the agreed limit of £250, but I did not notice this as it was not in use. This repeated for 4 months, by the 4th month I was only beyond the limit by a few quid but I now have '6 months of late payment' on my credit report which has crippled my credit score.

Do I have any course of action to help this? Is the bank partly at fault for allowing this to happen?

Furthermore, upon realising the situation I immediately paid into the account to bring the balance back up to zero and closed the account, this was 9 June 2015, the account first going over the credit limit on 26 February 2015.