Thank you so much for this inspiring service.

I want to find out about what information is held against me by the Credit agencies. What I want to know is whether the simple act of requesting data from them means that that this query gets recorded in my Experian / agency file?

Two other questions - I have a little more money now and wondered if I paid some old debts held against me, if OTHER collection agencies think "OK! Time to collect!" and then come down on me like a ton of bricks?

Is there a similar website for people who have personal debt problems? I have an old loan from Barclays and dont even know whether the debt has been written off / if it is still there or has grown to the size of a mountain with interest payments...

-- John Williamson (pitcairn36@hotmail.com), August 02, 2001

Answers

Sending off for your own credit file does not get recorded on your file. This would seem to me the most logical place to start before paying any one anything.

To make your money go further negotiate with your debtors to accept PART payment of the debt in "full and final settlement", but be sure to get them to agree to taking negative info off of your credit file first. Negative and positive info can stay on your credit file for up to 6 years, so if nothing else getting your file will help you know where to start.

As for the floodgates, I have no real idea, but doubt it, –unsecured creditors will mostly get satisfaction from having a CCJ or default registered against you and leave it at that (in the knowledge that they have ruined your credit rating!) – it’s the mortgage lenders that will pursue you relentlessly – Why? because they can….

-- jude (jude.adegbe@lineone.net), August 02, 2001.

When you request your file from Experian you have to provide your current as well as past addresses. They will not give you your file without a current address to send it to. I found out to my cost years ago that the current address *is* updated on your file. It therefore stands to reason that anyone with access to the info will find you, if you don't appear on the electoral roll/poll tax register (which is how I always got found).

With regard to other creditor's, they may or may not come after you depending on their write-off threshold. Many companies write off smaller debts which are not cost effective to pursue in order to get the bad debt relief deduction. Others sell them on assignment to debt collectors who will "return" the debt before the 6 years is up so that the originating creditor can take the BDR, as appropriate.

Barclays (as I understand it) sell their debts where they exceed a certain amount. Under their limit they have been known to write themn off, but a loan default without a bankruptcy discharge will blacklist you anyway.

-- Too scared to say (iwasduped@yahoo.com), August 02, 2001.

Yes I agree with all of the above,its quite normal for mortgage lenders to ignore defaults over say 2 years .unsecured debts are notoriously difficlt to collect and thats why they are expensive in the first place.If Barclays wanted you enugh they will find you anyway.Get on with your life and stop worrying they never worried about you!

-- roger watts (rwatts.homeloans@virgin.net), August 03, 2001.