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Dealing with a nearly 5 year old default

Some time in the 90s I bought a PC on finance and was paying it off monthly on direct debit for many years. In 2001 I changed my bank details and rang the finance company with my new details and gave them direct debit authority. I never heard from them again and thought no more of it.

Fast forward to a few months ago, I checked my credit history with the

3 agencies and find 2 of them have recorded me as having defaulted on the remaining balance owing (some £300). I'm obviously a bit annoyed about this as I was perfectly able and willing to pay and they never contacted me, didn't send me a default notice or any demands for payment. Not to mention they were perfectly able to take the money from me anyway.

I contacted Equifax to dispute this and explain the story above. They contacted my finance company, had no reply, and agreed to remove the default from my credit history. I contacted Experian in the same way and they just got back to me today to say the finance company did get back to them, have asserted the information on my file is correct, and so the default stays.

My question is, do I have anything to gain by contacting the original finance company and trying to work this out? If I get them the money, which I'm quite happy to, will they remove all record of this default from my account? The reason I'm hesitating is firstly, I'm not sure if they will remove the record of default even if I do pay up. Secondly, it will be 5 years to the day since the default was recorded, on the

31st of August. Am I right in thinking that defaults expire from a credit history after 5 years? If this is the case, then it would seem the easiest course of action is simply to wait till September and my credit history will be clear.
Reply to
Elfasi
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At 12:52:09 on 14/06/2006, Elfasi delighted uk.finance by announcing:

Yes. They may ask Experian to amend the record.

You'd have to ask them. The only way you can guarantee its removal is if it's incorrect. Since you didn't actually make the payment, the information could be said to be correct.

7 years for missed payments on Experian, so you've got over 2 years to go.

They've also still got another year to sue you, now they're aware you're still around. If you're worried about a £300 default from 5 years ago showing on your record, you probably don't want a CCJ on there as well.

Reply to
Alex

In my younger halcyon days, I ended up with a couple of defaults on my credit file after I moved out of my parents house and forgot to tell the credit card company, and then my parents forgot to give me my post for several months. As soon as I found out, I cleared the arrears and although the defaults still show on my credit file, they show as settled (or satisfied, whatever!). However, although I did initially have a problem with gaining new credit, over time they became less of an issue and now I've got credit cards coming out my ears (but thankfully no debts as I now pay them off in full every month). What probably also helped is that I did a Notice of Correction to the credit reference agencies saying something along the lines of that I'd not received the default notices because I'd moved house and hadn't realised that there was a balance still outstanding on the credit card account when I moved. The fact that I was still using the cards but not receiving a statement for a couple of months (at which point the cards were blocked) seemed to have escaped me at the time. But then, I was young so I didn't care then.

Reply to
Wedell

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