Bank admits misreporting an ICB file - where to go next?

J

Joe90

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Sorry if this is the wrong forum....

Last September I applied for a car loan with my local credit union. Both myself and my wife work full-time in the public sector, and we have not missed any payments with this or any other credit providers in the past. Not even a direct debit has been returned unpaid by us in all of our adult lives. We did briefly enter into a part capital and interest restructure on our PTSB mortgage when both of us were in casual employment, but at all times we made the agreed payments. We cancelled restructure and returned to full repayments two years before it was to expire, and returned to full repayments 17 months ago.



We were subsequently surprised to hear from our credit union that there was some issue with our credit rating, and they would not approve our application. I sent in the €6 for the ICB report, and found out that our mortgage payment report by PTSB on the ICB file was not up-to-date. Today, three months, two letters and an irate phone-call after our initial enquiry to them, we have been advised by PTSB that it was due to a “system restrictions” issue. According to them, a new profile is created on the ICB file when a restructure in entered into, and that the cancellation of the new profile had failed to report to the ICB. They have apologised for this on two separate paragraphs and say that they have amended the profile to show the current up to date profile,



They have referred me to the Financial Services Ombudsman’s Bureau if I am dissatisfied with their response. I absolutely am dissatisfied with their response, but I am wondering should I go further and file a complaint with the Data Protection Commissioner over their erroneous data reporting, and also should I engage a solicitor for damages and costs for reputational damage? The least I would have expected would be a letter to the credit union, as we feel our good name has been ruined by an error that we did not commit. I was trying to remortgage away for Prison TSB this year, there would have been an awful lot of embarrassment and no hope of that happening if we had gone into a full application with another lender.



Sorry if this comes across as a rant, but I feel that this has been handled so badly by PTSB. With all of the other people like ourselves who entered into and respected agreements in good faith, to have this messing going on after they have dissolved the arrangement is unbelievable. But then again this is a failed and dying bank that we are dealing with…..
 
Well I would have thought that the fact that you had to enter a restructuring agreement for any period at would be a significant event from a credit application point of view...
 
Have PTSB amended your ICB profile at this stage? They have the facility to do this. You should get an updated ICB report to confirm.

Once that's done, as annoying as it is, there's not much point getting worked up about it unfortunately. In terms of reputational damage, the credit department in the CU are the only people that have seen this. An updated ICB report will sort out your reputation there.

Regardless of the wrong reporting to ICB, being on an arrangement would likely have damaged your credit rating somewhat and required an explanation in any event.
 
Do report them to the Data Protection Commissioner, they are required to have proper records and a proper process for these, not "system restrictions".
 
ardmacha said:
Do report them to the Data Protection Commissioner, they are required to have proper records and a proper process for these, not "system restrictions".
Click to expand...

It's not worth the hassle. Human and system errors happen - such is life. The bank made a mistake and corrected it once it was brought to their attention, and that's likely how the DPC will see it. There are mistakes up on the ICB all of the time and they generally only become apparent when something like this arises. Lenders know this, so the suggestion that there is reputational damage is a bit wide of the mark.
 
This is frustrating but from what I remember you are only entitled to have incorrect information corrected, I am not sure there is any obligation around revisiting other applications to other institutions who made decisions based on that wrong information. It happened to me over 10 years ago with another bank. Similar scenario: I couldn't get credit and couldn't see why. After it was repaired I applied for the same kind of credit to a different institution and it was accepted. You could update all of your previous applications to say that there was an error that has since been remedied.
It is extremely frustrating, but I don't think there is sufficient weight behind the law to properly create disincentives for institutions to tackle this. From what I recall from briefly working with ICB reporting and one of the banks its a very automated process to easy to make excuses. I believe this is to change, however?
 
Having filed for bankruptcy in 2011 in the UK and discharged one year later. I'm now clear of discharge for more than 5 years, however one of my lenders is still reporting my loan to the ICB as account in arrears. Obviously this is incorrect, I have lodged a complaint with the FSO which is in mediation, but the bank still haven't done anything. I have requested a letter from them to state that there is no requirement for me to repay the loan but they haven't provided it yet.

Any ideas? Should I be going down the legal route instead of the FSO? Any recommendations?

Where do I find information to state the bank should remove any record from my credit report after 5 years from discharge?
 
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