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On 28 Nov 2007, at 15:33, Andy Smith wrote: > Hi, > > On Wed, Nov 28, 2007 at 02:18:56PM +0000, Clare Shepherd wrote: >> I suppose my beef is with the fact that people's lives can be >> affected by their credit rating, when the rating is mistaken. I >> live in a house where the previous occupant skipped the country >> owing the Inland Revenue, their employer, a bank, and the DHSS. I >> was hassled for months and even had phone abuse from the previous >> occupants creditors when I stated I didn't know where they were. >> Sorry if the touchiness on the subject led to a rant, as you so >> accurately said. > > Yes it can be a hassle, but I think it would be far worse if credit > history did not exist as you would have no way to address these > issues. Everything that you've experienced would still be > happening, but worse because there would be no central store of > information so you'd have to correct it in multiple places (many of > which you won't know about ahead of time). > > There are ways and means of sorting this out. Apologies if you have > been through all this already, but in the case where you live at an > address that previously got bad debt you can put on file that you > are not associated with the previous tenants. > > This can also be done when people at the same address but > independent of you cause problems, for example I know a case where a > father's problems with the Inland Revenue (as it was) prevented his > son from getting a mortgage due to the bad credit record of family > member at same address. The son just had to write to the credit > reporting agency to state that his finances were not related to the > father's, and it was sorted out. If the credit reporting agency did > not exist then perhaps the son would have no way to get an > affordable mortgage due to how much higher the interest rate would > have to be to compensate. > > Now, some companies still choose to see bad debt at an address to > mean that they should not do business with that address, but that is > completely their own choice and to say it shouldn't happen is to > dictate who they should be allowed to trade with. In individual > cases it may not be fair, but that's business, and is actually an > argument FOR using credit reporting agencies more. > > Finally, if you are being harassed by debt collectors, this is > illegal. All you need do is write to them to explain why the debt > is not owed (in this case because you're not the people they are > after) and that they should not contact you again. If they do > continue to go after you then this is harassment of a debtor and it > is an offence which you can take them to court over. > > I do not see how any of these circumstances could be improved by > doing away with the central records, and in many cases I could > imagine it getting worse. > > Cheers, > Andy > -- > Thanks for the info. Andy. I should have sai I've owned this house for 6 years and everything was satisfactorily resolved some time ago, in fact I got a bank loan in the interim, all was ok. However, I still smart at the memories. I can see that these central records are necessary. It's to be hoped that the accuracy can be improved. I just feel for those that are going thro' the trauma of mistaken bad debt listing. Clare -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html