Credit History - Such a waste of time

[mkandy]

Judging by some of the problems people are facing in this forum, my own problems may well be seen as tiny in comparison, but I'm willing to bet a lot of people are in a similar situation to me.

 

Re-wind 5 years, I was working for the RBoS, unfortunately not with the kind of pension Mr Goodwin is on, far from it, I was earning 10k a year!Struggling to make ends meet I got involved with credit cards and loans, then the usual thing happened, bills piled up, debts grew larger, and I started ignoring them through shame.

 

Things picked up a year or so later, new job, more money and set about paying off bills, pretty much an entire year of doing nothing in life but paying debts.

 

Last year, thanks to this place I hit back at most of these companies, got all my money back and defaults removed. Except one. Citicards, who point blank refuse to remove the default but have refunded me all the money.

 

I managed to get my first credit card in 5 years just after Christmas and have been using it to buy everything I normally buy, fuel, food, and other necessities. I pay it back in full every month, and plan to do so for a long time as it should help fix my credit history, or so I thought.

 

I'm still ineligible for a small (£50) or so overdraft on my bank account which has a decent salary in every month, not to mention a savings account with a big sum of money in. Nor it seems can I get a mortgage because of this default, or even be able to lease a car.

 

I have one default, almost completely comprised of unlawful charges, that represents me missing payments at a time that I was earning less than 2/3's of what I am now. Citicards as i say refuse to remove it, the ICO are likely to take 6 months to respond to a complaint i raised about it, and it makes me angry.

 

I want to say 'b******s to credit history', but the reality is, without a clean history, especially in the recession we're in, your name is as good as dirt.

[craigers]

can you not take it to county court? much quicker than relying on the ICO.