Can someone check credit history without your signature?

Hi all,

Having a very hard time with AIB at the moment. I have a €27,000 loan over 5 years with BOI and want to switch to AIB to take advantage of preferential interest rate. I have a perfect credit history, am in a permanent job and my mum who is an AIB customer is willing to go guarantor on it so I didnt see any problems.

However they rang me on Friday (after two weeks) to say that as it was an unsecured loan and that my wages were not coming into an AIB account that they could not do it for me. I told them it would not be unsecured as my mum would be guarantor at which point the salesperson balked and said that she would ring me back this morning. Of course she never did, and I just rang them to see what the story was and no one was available.

My question is given that I have not filled out an application form, and they have only taken my basic details how on earth have they refused me for a loan? I handed in my 6 months statements and to be honest I'm extremely confused. Surely they would have needed my signature to check credit history? (Which as I said is 100% clean)

I know I'm not an AIB customer but I'm quite angry that they are being so troublesome, as I am as close to a 0% risk as they will find.

It sounds like they did not do a credit check on you and their grounds for initially turning you down are likely to be as they stated.

According to the [broken link removed] the lender needs a signed loan application before they have permission to check your credit rating.

3. Is my lender allowed to check my credit history?

When you sign a mortgage or loan application you automatically give your lender permission (consent) to send information about your repayments to a credit reference agency such as ICB, and to seek information about your credit history. If your credit history is poor, a lender is very unlikely to give you a loan even if you have the income to repay it.

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Thanks for that GZ. Following a conversation with the manager you're 100% right the application didnt even get to credit check stage. Very annoying considering I am repaying more than I would be with them currently with my BOI loan, and am in as secure a job as possible. My guarantor is also a long term AIB customer. Seems that the banks aren't as open for business as they claim!

Are they prepared to reconsider if you jump through a few hoops for them, like paying your salary into a current account with them?

As far as I remember one of the details on an ICB credit report is the list of institutions that made a credit check on you, if you ever want independent confirmation.

i believe they can perform credit checks without a signed form.

sure think about it....you can apply online for loans, cc's etc and never fill in a 'hard copy' form.

Perhaps without a manual signature but not without some form of permission which would form part of the online loan application

hi, whats the difference in the rates? they may not have checked ur rating, but worth asking them...perhaps there is something on their in error that u dont know about.

How about going back to BOI and saying that if they dont match the AIB rate, you'll move your current account, which wages are paid into, over to AIB to avail of their better rate? Worth a try.

Why would one bank want to take on another banks debt. Not a good business move in this current climate. Also the difference in rate wouldnt be that much in the difference on a 27K loan so AIB would be wondering why you want to switch to them?