I recently checked my ICB report after being advised to do so, and I was surprised to see a discrepancy between how my affairs were reported.
I had been a little late with some of my repayments on a couple of very modest loans. It was administrative negligence/ineptitude more than anything else, and all missed payments were immediately made good once the lender had contacted me (or the DD was re-presented).
Each of the BoS incidents is reported in my credit report, where another lender clearly had a more flexible policy/process and reported no payments missed, even though I had received a few letters from them. This gives the impression that, while I never missed a beat with one lender, I was going over a month in arrears with the other (and I was never over a month in arrears). Needless to say, my credit rating is completely screwed, and will be for some time.
So, I'm wondering what is regarded as standard practice, and who -- good cop or bad cop -- is out of step? If, say, the less punitive approach is the one commonly applied by most banks, doesn't this harsher treatment by BoS make me look even worse? On that basis, should I seek to have the entries amended so that the record reflects the more usual standard?
And, more generally, if Bank of Scotland are more punitive, should borrowers be more careful in taking out loans from them?