Credit Report FAQ
Change information on your credit report
If you see your credit report, and find factual errors on the report,
you can contact the credit agency and ask them to change the information. The credit
agency may ask you for proof of the change you request.
If you have adverse information on your credit report, and wish to
explain the circumstances, you can. A Notice of Correction is a short (up to 200 words)
explanatory note you can add to an entry on your credit report to explain the background
to that information. Anyone searching your report in the future or who has seen it in the
previous six months will see the Notice of Correction, and they must take account of it
when you apply for credit.
If an address you have never lived at appears on your credit report, you
may be able to get it removed. A linked address may appear on your report because you have
had a financial connection with that address although you may never have lived there. If
you have not had any connection with an address that is listed, contact the credit
reference agency and ask them to contact the company that gave them the information and
delete the link if appropriate.
Your address is supplied from the electoral roll. The electoral roll
information supplied to credit reference agencies does not show the exact dates of
residency but the dates your name was registered by the Local Authority. For example, you
may have moved to an address but did not register yourself to vote there until a few
months later. If your address information is incorrect it can be changed. If you have
registered on the electoral roll recently, the credit agencies may be in the process of
updating their records. If you think the electoral roll has been published incorrectly
contact your local authority directly. If you've already done so and have documentation
from the local authority confirming an amendment to the electoral roll, forward this to
all credit reference agencies and they will update your report.
If a person with whom you have no financial connection appears on your
credit report, you can ask for their details to be removed. The process is called
disassociation. Once a disassociation has been created, lenders requesting your report
will no longer see details of the disassociated person. The credit reference agency will
write to you to confirm when this has been done.
If account information such as loan or credit cards information is
wrong, it can be corrected. If you think any details are incorrect you should contact the
organisation or lender concerned. The organisation will amend their records (if
applicable) and tell all credit reference agencies they share data with of the changes.
Credit reference agencies keep a record of defaulted accounts for six
years from the date the lender decided you had broken the terms of the agreement (the
‘defaulted' date). The lender will have told you that the account was to be classed
as being in default. The current balance on a defaulted account should show if payments
have been made since the default, or if the account has now been fully paid. If you have
paid, you should obtain evidence from the lender to confirm you have paid, and then write
to the credit reference agency with the proof and ask them to show your payment on your
credit report.
If your credit report shows a search against you by a company you know
nothing about, start by contacting the organisation who made the search and ask for
further details. If the organisation agrees to remove a search they will tell the credit
reference agencies. It may be that the search is in the name of a finance company used by
another company which you may know.
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