Posted By: MeanRedSpider
Credit Rating - 18/09/2014 15:15
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
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