credit applications

LOL

Bitstring , from the wonderful person peter lawless said

"Because you are a terminal whinger on uk.finance" ?? Would that be transparent enough?

Seriously, the golden rule is pretty obvious - never give credit to anyone who might actually need it.

Anyone can get their 2 statutory credit (experian/equifax) file which should give some idea why credit is being turned down.

becasue "We feel you are not good enough to be one of our customers" might offend some people?

In message , peter lawless writes

Such a legal requirement would reduce the availability of quick credit and increase interest rates.

If such a system were introduced it would end up like bounced cheques, in which a bank would avoid a 'derogatory' answer by saying to the payee, "we cant tell you why the cheque has bounced, so we suggest you 'refer to drawer' for the answer". In other words, a meaningless answer.

I can see no reason why a lender should be obliged to tell you that your eyes are too close together.

Experian at Nottingham gives you the reason why for 2.

You have to ask yourself if you wanted members of the general public to know what your credit score was. That's why its covered by the Data Protection Act - its your personal information

Without a hint of irony, "Paul C" astounded uk.finance on 13 Jul 2004 by announcing:

No, they don't.

I quote from a letter of a major lending institute (Decline Letter)

' Should you wish to find out what information is held about you on file by Experian Ltd, you can do so by sending a letter to the following address, enclosing a cheque or postal order for 2.00

EXPERIAN LIMITED PO BOX 8000 Nottingham NG1 1GX

"Paul C" wrote

OK, so I've read your quote. Now - where does it say that *Experian* will give you the *reason* why a credit-provider (not Experian) refuses someone credit ?? :-(

The credit provider cannot divulge the information due to the data protection act as this information is shared with credit reference agencies.

You have to ask yourself if this wasn't the case, your financial information regarding your credit history would be available to all and sundry

In message , Paul C writes

No. The reason for a declination is NEVER passed outside the credit provider. The occurrence of the declination is, but not the reason.

Without a hint of irony, "Paul C" astounded uk.finance on 14 Jul 2004 by announcing:

Erm... they can divulge what they want about the application to the applicant. The fact is that they don't want to. This information is not passed to Experian, either. Only the fact that they did a search (and possibly that it was during an application) is passed to Experian - they don't even tell them whether the application was successful or not.

Without a hint of irony, john boyle astounded uk.finance on 14 Jul 2004 by announcing:

Even that is not always the case. It's one reason that excess applications can adversely affect your credit rating - the companies you apply to later don't necessarily know if you were accepted for those 10 credit cards and 5 loans you applied for 2 months ago.

In message , Alex writes

Thats true.

I gues they don't want to get involved in backward and forward pleading sessions along the lines "It was only a little bit over/late etc".

DG

That will only give you your credit history. If you got declined for bad credit then the report may show you. If it was on a credit score you could have a perfect report, just simply did not have enough points. Credit scores are at the criteria of the company, experian has nothing to do with that.

Without a hint of irony, Phil Deane astounded uk.finance on 14 Jul 2004 by announcing:

Although they do provide a credit scoring service to banks (which I believe consumers now have access to as well) but obviously cannot tell you what scores pass/fail an individual lender's criteria.

Without a hint of irony, derek * astounded uk.finance on 14 Jul 2004 by announcing:

Along with the myriad other criteria that contribute towards a total score.

It's not practical, for instance, to say to one customer:

You've moved addresses every 6 months You're single You're a 'furnished' tenant Your bank account's only 3 months old You missed a payment on a loan 9 months ago You have 5 searches in the last 2 months

then deal with the ensuing correspondence, then do the same for the other few thousand refusals they issued that day. Perhaps they could publish the score assigned to each check, but they almost certainly review their policy regularly and wouldn't want the hassle associated with that either.

All of which contravenes the intent of the DPA.

One of the fundamental objects of the DPA is to allow you to see information held about you and correct it if it's wrong.