Holey Moley - once you start turning over stones it never ends.

A couple of months ago my mortgage payment was bounced by Lloyds because is gone over my overdraft limit. I was particularly pi55ed off because I had plenty of cash in my Lloyds savings account and because the warning I normally get from the bank that the limit was close never materialised. Anyhow, the mortgage company (C&G - ironically part of Lloyds) wrote and said they'd try again to take the payment and it went through fine. Then I discovered that my credit rating had gone from 5* to 2* and I was now considered a moderately high risk. I got in touch with Experian who said that, yes, this was the only blemish on my record. I asked them to ask C&G to correct it because it was partly down to a failure by Lloyds. I also contacted C&G who said they'd also look into it but also said Lloyds could correct it because they're part of the same group of companies. So I then contacted Lloyds who said they'd like to correct it but couldn't because C&G are considered separate by the credit reference agencies. They also said they couldn't talk to C&G without me being present (my nearest branch is 250 miles away). So I'm now in this bizarre triangle of trying to fix this problem.

In looking into this, I then discovered that there are some linked addresses on my report from 4 years ago when my wife had an ID fraud done on her. Despite clearing up her record, the agencies hadn't cleared mine.

I then looked at my CreditCheck report. The summary said I had a late payment and (depending upon which version you look at) either a lack of credit history or a default payment. I challenged this and was told that they are just "generic statements" (neither is remotely true). I also discovered that they were meant to be sending me alerts of any issues and the last alert was sent 4 years ago. They've been telling me that there are no significant changes to my credit rating (despite the drop from 5 to 2 stars).

The point is that these companies have a significant impact on being able to run your life yet they're slapdash at best. I'm appalled.

Anyhow, it's worth taking a look at your report if you haven't in a while

This credit rating malarkey was new to me when I returned to the UK after living in France for the best part of 20 years. I absolutely could not believe my ears when the outrageous level of influence and control they wield with an apparently total lack of interest or justification was explained to me.
If people are concerned about infringements of civil liberties and Big Brother, never mind the government, it's these charlatan bast@rds you want to be worried about.

Fortunately my only woes on that front were easier to solve although rather embarrassing.

After moving house and remortaging a few years ago the building society who shall remain nameless (OK, no they won't, it was the Nationwide) forgot to set up the direct debit (despite having all the necessary at their side) and did the double whammy of issuing me red letters for the payment (which was soon sorted) and adding a non-payment blemish to my credit history. Very annoyingly they neither bothered telling me they'd added it to my credit history nor removed it when it was clear the fault was theirs.

I only found when the computer said no to interest free credit when I was buying wedding rings and the soon to be MrsWishy had to temporarily bail me out!

Fortunately a telephone call to the building society and a month watching my Experian credit rating fixed it. And yes, the amount of info they had was rather disconcerting.

Timely reminder to go and check mine, which I have just done and then cancelled the Experian contract/monthly charge!

www.noddle.co.uk for a free life time credit report. Although it might not be as comprehensive as Experian / others but it's free

Breaking news is that the C&G missed payment has been corrected.

Bizarrely, though, it's made no difference to my score!!!! I can see I'll be onto Experian tomorrow....

In my case it took a week or two for it to filter through to Experian's scoring system. I just kept checking and it eventually returned to normal.

I've gone through a load of hoops in the last 6 months as we try to buy a house.
We haven't had any normal credit at all for about 6 years so, effectively, don't exist.
We'd also not been on electoral rolls until the last couple of years as we kept moving house and simply never bothered.

After several months of trying to sort things out, and with both Experian and Equifax now having exactly the same info, my credit ratings as provided by the 2 above named are about as far apart as it's possible to get

They are a complete pain in the backside and, in typical call centre style, their operatives are among the most disinterested people I've had the misfortune to deal with.

Lets also not forget that these credit rating agencies managed to completely miss the global economic meltdown several years ago

the experian "score" is just that. An indication from experian of what experian thinks you credit score is.

It's a brilliant business model to get people to pay monthly to view what experian thinks of you. It's about as generic as you are likely to find.

However... Each and every mortgage/credit company/bank etc will use the raw data from experian and then score you based on their own risk.

I still fail to see the point in spending good money finding out what experian thinks of my credit rating. Might as well just do a DPA request and have a look at the raw data.

It's fine if you understand how financial institutions interpret the data. For instance, a lack of credit accounts in operation counts against you. Too much credit though also counts against you. A new mortgage counts against you but an established mortgage counts for you.

I only pay once in a while but it always surprises me about how some aspect or other is viewed.