Hi everyone,
I was just reading the topic about shonky companies putting black marks on people’s credit ratings, and just wanted to warn people about my experience.
I applied for a credit card at the same time as I was in the process of making an offer on an investment property I really wanted. To my amazement, the credit card was refused. (I already have an IP and savings, and no bad credit).
I paid $19.95 to get my credit rating sent to me, and withdrew my “unconditional offer” on the property as I feared I wouldn’t receive a loan.
The house sold for the same price to another buyer who made his offer “unconditional”, and I missed out.
Anyway, I found Telstra had put the mark against my name, which was incurred from a home phone in QLD. I live in VIC, always have, and Telstra knew this as that’s where my mobile phone bills have been going for the last 4 years.
To cut a long story short (involving hours of being on “hold” to them, being treated like a criminal & putting up with no responses for weeks) they removed the mark. I sent a letter outlining the inconvenience & problems they’d caused, and asked for the $19.95 to be refunded.
After 3 months, still no reply.
Since this occured a similar thing happened to a lady I work with, and she was refused a loan due to it. It’s frustrating and unbelievable that big companies get away with this sort of thing. And I still haven’t found a property anywhere near as good as the one I missed out on [
]Just wanted to vent that [
!]Depending on the amount of deposit/equity you have, these telco defaults most of the time are irrellevant in regards to home loans- personal loans, credit cards different story. For Example if you have 15-20% deposit of purchase price, No problem. However, they would like it paid upon settlement or removed from your file, or in some cases a letter from your solicitor stating that the default is in dispute will get you by.
The other option would have been to approach a non-confroming lender who would only require 10%deposit, although their interest rates are generally 2% higher, you wouldn’t have missed out on the property and could have refinanced when your file was cleared.
The best protection you could have is to register with one of the credit agency for credit alert to your e-mail. You will be alerted every time someone put a record in your file.
Talk to Batcorp Advantage to register yourself. It costs about $29.90 per year. Best $30 you could ever spend.
Ta, Paul
There are legal firms that specialise in getting htsi defaults removed. I beleive that they threaten to sue the company that lists the default (whether just justifiable or not). i hear the costs are about $1000.
Generally telephone type defaults under $400 or not much to woory about. But some lenders, even low doc require a clear craa.
Terryw
[email protected]Terryw | Structuring Lawyers Pty Ltd / Loan Structuring Pty Ltd
http://www.Structuring.com.au
Email MeLawyer, Mortgage Broker and Tax Advisor (Sydney based but advising Aust wide) http://www.Structuring.com.au
Hi Soleil,
You might consider contacting the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman who can look at Telstra behaviours and cause them to retract inappropriate behaviour.
My recent experiences with ombudsmen in other areas has not been necessarily positive, but they are there to investigate complaints against Telstra so you never know.
soleil
That is really shitty, especialy when you aren’t actually at fault. I agree with paulthemagnet, it’s beat to know in advance when something goes on your craa, especially when it can be crappy late utilities or total mistakes.
Someone posted this link on the forum a while back and I saved it you might want to register your problem there, it is called Not Good Enough at http://www.notgoodenough.org/.
Good Luck & Cheers
Leigh K[]Read, learn, grow but most of all just do it.
Hi everyone
Having worked for a finance company for 4 years, part of my job was to Default peoples credit files if loans were not paid. I was so shocked at how easy it was to do.
It is an everpresent problem that people only come across when they are applying for finance, but by then it can be too late.
I agree that getting notification when someone puts an enquiry on your credit file is a very good idea. Mistakes are made all the time, and companies are not particularly helpful in removing them.
Cheers
Darren
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