Bad Credit History

If you have suffered from previous county court judgements (CCJ), bankruptcy, defaulted accounts or other arrears and want to repair your bad credit history, there is free advice available from Government organizations such as your local trading standards office and the Citizens Advice Bureau. Some local councils also provide money advice centres.

There are some unscrupulous organisations who claim to provide a credit repair service by removing unfavourable records such as county court judgements from your credit files. However, they may charge a high fee or use an expensive premium rate telephone line.

Credit reference agencies in the UK, such as Experian, Callcredit plc and Equifax plc, hold credit files on most of the adult population and supply data to loan organisations for a small charge. If you have recently applied for an unsecured or secured loan which has been turned down the lender does not have to give the exact reason why, although they may give you an indication of the reason provided by the credit reference agency.

The good news is that you can obtain an online copy of a report of your credit rating held by either Callcredit plc, Experian or Equifax plc credit referencing agencies for a fee. If the information held on you is incorrect the Consumer Credit Act 1974 provides protection to the consumer in that you have the right to request that the information is corrected or removed from your file, or to include a self explanatory note indicating why you think the information is not correct.