Real Estate

Which? slams ‘cryptic and costly’ credit reporting system

Which? has criticised the lack of transparency and accountability with the credit reporting system – which is harming mortgage applicants.

A third (32%) of people have found a mistake on their credit report, but dealing with mistakes isn’t a simple process.

What’s supposed to happen is consumers notify their credit reporting agency (CRA), which then marks the information as in dispute and queries it with the firm. However most people said they were forced to do most of the legwork to amend errors.

For example in one case a customer was forced to liaise with O2, who said he defaulted on a payment despite never having an account with them.

Equifax then told him they couldn’t remove the blemish on his record because they could not accept communications from O2’s customer service team, only O2 Fraud, and he was eventually forced to go to the Financial Ombudsman Service to sort things out.

Sam Richardson, deputy editor of Which? Money, said: “The credit reporting system has long been shrouded in mystery, but as our research reveals, it can have a big impact on those caught up in fixing mistakes.

“We’ve found that many people are left to correct mistakes on their report themselves, despite the onus being on credit reference agencies and lenders to fix errors.

“Which? wants the system to be made much clearer and simpler, with mistakes easy to rectify.”




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