Default wrongly put on credit file

[dannyo87]

Hi all.

Found out that I have a default on credit file from August 2018 for £24 and is greatly impacting me getting mortgage.

Had two phones on contract year previous and a sim only for £6 a month after a year I phoned up and cancelled the sim as I was paying for a sim I had never used shortly after direct debit was taken from account and then refunded have all evidence bank statements and account number matches default have other evidence and am a 100 percent certain that i have been wrongly defaulted.

Emailed creditamendments but it can take upto a month just to look at it also phoned virgin numerous times and have no record of debt in my name and carnt help.

Any advice on next steps or who i can contact would be very much appreciated Time isn't on my side and need it rectified ASAP.  

[Andrew-G · Accepted solution]

dannyo87: We regularly hear of people wrongly marked as being in default at the end of a VM contract.  As this is processing inaccurate data, and that is unlawful you should complain to the ICO, who (unlike Ofcom) do take notice and do take action if they see persistent issues.  If the ICO take the matter up, that will force VM to behave competently in future, but won't immediately help with your problem.

You should also be seeking substantial compensation from VM - it's a very serious allegation to make that anybody is a defaulter, and the casual way that VM seem to do this for people at the end of their contract deserves taking to task.  Let VM's credit team sort out the current situation, but escalate the complaint to Ombudsman Services (after reading and understanding their guidance) asking for compensation for this serious error.  Personally I'd be asking for at least £150 if VM wrongly branded me as a defaulter.

[dannyo87]

Thanks Andrew.

Think that's the next route just had private message off one of the forum team offering me 10 pound as compensation which is laughable.

Will email ICO over weekend.

And by the look of it will be escalating to ombudsman because wont be excepting 10 pound or even 150 like you said I'm just in middle of working out how its affected any credit ive had in last four and a half years and thats without messing up my re mortgage and 2 days I'm behind on job due to trying to get to bottom of it because virgin couldn't tell where default was from.

[Andrew-G]

When you take it to Ombudsman Services, you may find that the web form is constrained to a set number of characters, and if that's the case then anything complex is difficult to get across.  Last time I used their services (not about VM) the web complaint process was a bit clunky and you didn't know what questions you'd get asked, and you couldn't go back at important stages of the process, which again meant it was challenging for anything that wasn't simple. 

You may be best off presenting your case by letter, although you'd need to phone and check whether there's a way to do that.  You might also want to check and see if the Financial Ombudsman can investigate a complaint about mis-reporting a default under a credit agreement.   Despite the "ombudsman" name, they're not linked to Ombudsman Services, and they may have better understanding of the impact of such actions.

[dannyo87]

Thanks for all your advice Andrew much appreciated 👍 

[BalotonKenese]

Hi Danny,
I'm in exactly the same position that you were. Default of £40 wrongly put on an earlier closed account. I only found out yesterday, when my mortgage lender refused my application for a mortgage. I'm about to lose the house that I've had an offer accepted on.
I've written to the credit file amendments team yesterday - no answer.
Spoken to customer services - they have told me I am correct, that I've never been in default, and in fact had overpaid - Virgin Media owe ME £40.
How did you resolve your issue? I'm truly distraught. It's our dream house and no-one seems able to help me resolve the issue quickly, despite the admitted error on their part

[Alex_RM]

Hi BalotonKenese 👋

Thanks for posting, and sorry to hear of the situation. So I can take a closer look at this for you I've popped you over a private message (purple envelope, top right hand corner)

Alex_Rm

[dannyo87]

Hi balotonkenese.

Sorry for late reply havent been on in a while hope its been sorted for you if not best way I found is to shout about it online as you will get no where talking to the call centre in Philippines.

Email evidence to ammendments team.

Going to take my case further now will probably have to re complain to get it going again as original complaint expired but have all evidence logged before they wiped it.

When you do get it sorted complain to ico and take up with ombudsman when they offer you a pathetic offer most I was offered as compensation was 30 pound.

Bottom line is virgin need to seriously look at the way they deal with cases like this because the procedure is a nightmare.