Mortgages.scot

An interesting question I received last week from a visitor that discovered they had an outstanding debt they say they knew nothing about and has not affected any credit applied for until now. Possible? Well, maybe.

“So I applied for a mortgage to find out a mobile phone debt from 8 years ago was discovered by the mortgage company. I applied for a car loan last year and it was fine, I have run a report with Experian and nothing there and the mortgage people won’t share any other info, what do I do :(“

When I see claims like this I usually take a doubtful position in that you probably did know and chose to do nothing about it until it was too late.

However, it does appear as though it is becoming a more common occurrence. Not entirely sure why, well, I have a suspicion.

Lenders from my experience tend to use one of three credit reference agencies or all three. They are Equifax, Experian and Call Credit.

Here is the issue. If you default on a loan where the lender only tells Call Credit and not Experian or Equifax then you apply for several facilities over a period of years and none of the credit checks made use Call Credit, then the outstanding debt will never be found. That may be the issue here.

Now, of course, it does sound like you know about the debt given you are not denying it, so all you can do is try and contact the mobile phone company and pay the outstanding amount.

Lenders are usually fairly forgiving when it comes to mobile phone debt as long as you get it paid. It is something many fall foul of in that mobile phone contracts even when the contracted term ends, do not simply stop without you requesting cancellation. Many people get to the end of the contract, cancel the Direct Debit and think that is it. Unfortunately not, they keep charging up to a point.