Lowell? What to do....

[dalgiem]

I went out to purchase new furnature today and thought taking up the finance option of 0% over 2 years sounded like a good idea...

After being refused by two companies I gave up and paid from my bank account.

Later on I thought, why have I been refused credit - I never have in the past and I have no debts. So I checked on Experian and paid for the credit report from them.

Interestingly Lowell have appeared on this - I remembered then I recieved a letter from them saying that I had an outstanding ballance of £26 due from a mobile phone bill, what the hell is this?

After contacting them they informed me I had a bill outstanding from 2005/06 from a vodaphone contract. I said to them I dont understand why I am being asked for money and I said well Ill just pay it - its only £26 and not worth arguing over!

A brief history to this - in 2005 I moved to Republic of Ireland - I contacted Vodafone as I still had a contract with them and informed them that I was wanting to cancel the contract- they said I could not but could reduce the tarriff down to £14 per month. I also gave them my new address in Ireland as my bank in the UK would remain open but I would give them my Irish address. This was all ok - I did have the bills sent to me in Ireland and paid off until the end of the contract.
I contacted Vodafone at the end of the contract and said I wanted the phone cancelled. They said this was ok and I faxed paperwork through to them to cancel the contract - they would not do it over the phone - so fair enough.

The cancelled the contract and I have thought nothing more of it - I thought that I had paid it all off and had not cancelled any direct debits on my account - i just left it there.

And to add to this I dont have any bills as they are all destroyed when I moved back to the UK.

Anyway to cut this story short - after paying the £26 to Lowell there was nothing said about them affecting my credit rating etc. What I dont understand is that Vodafone had all my details in Ireland - I was still working for the same company - Vodafone had my new contact number - yet there was no contact from them to say that there was an outstanding bill - yet now I have come back to the UK Lowell have now put on my recored I have deafulted on my contract and this is affecting my credit score as it looks like I have failed to keep up my end of the contract when infact the direct debit was not cancelled (that I can remember) nor did I get any correspondence from Vodafone stating that I was due them money.

The day I recieved the letter from Lowell I paid the £26 as it is just not worth fighting about as my Bank dont hold records that far back and neither do I.

What I thought of doing is contacting Lowell to see what they say about this and possibly contacting Vodafone.

If I get no where I am going to contact OFT or Consumer affairs as I dont think they have done my credit rating any favours nor have I been contacted appropriately by Vodafone.

If they had called me in the first instance or written to me I would have rectified the situation - but I feel I have been unfairly targetted with this reference on my record.

Anyone have any advise on this????

[Tools]

Re: Lowell? What to do....

To be entirely honest I do not think that creditors will be too worried about an outstanding amount of £26. However, I would contact either Vodaphone, Lowells or the CRA's to mark the debt as satisfied and try to get them to remove it completely, worth a try and nothing to lose.

[shamen]

Re: Lowell? What to do....

Theres actually a few things you can do in this case. My situation is similar - moved overseas and moved back to declined credit. I have since found everything from fraud to the kitchen sink on my report.

First, I would do a subject access request to both Vodafone and Lowells to get exactly what they have. In the SAR, specifically ask vodafone for all notes made by staff on your accounts, including manual intervention. What you are after is solid proof that Vodafone were informed you had moved overseas, as this then means any default notice either they or Lowells sent to your old address is completely invalid. For example, I notified creditor X when I moved to the states, its in my notes, but they also noted that they did not update the account address as their system would only let them use UK addresses. All correspondance then went to my old address and I was none the wiser.

If they sent a default notice to an old address knowing fine well you were elsewhere then they cannot claim its a valid default notice - you had no way to remedy it. Therefore you can challenge the accuracy of the default on your credit report as invalid data.

I recommend doing those SAR's to Vodafone first. Good luck.