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miss croft said - "ok...I still havnt found any sort of information regarding how my friend can clear her "bad debt" record"
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You can't clear your name. The information on oasis is pretty clear.
The ICB is a central repository of credit information for a good reason - the members want to be able to assess the credit rating of individuals based on the experiences of other member institutions. If one of the institutions has a bad history with your friend, then this will be reflected in the individuals record.
However - your friend is allowed to add a comment to her own record to explain why certain events (such as non-payment) took place. This can be used to possibly mitigate a bad record. The history of a particular account is only held for 5 years, so it will expire after that time.
In the interim, there is little that can be done other than adding the comment to her record or explaining to anyone she is applying to for credit the exact circumstances of the account and the steps she has taken to improve her credit rating.
I'm sorry if this sounds harsh, but as above the ICB is there to serve member institutions, and if one of them has a bad experience with an individual, then they pass this information on.
Don't forget that your friend can request a copy of the record to see if everything that is recorded is correct. Under the data protection act you can request that incorrect information which is held about you (in electronic form, such as the record with the ICB) be corrected or removed.
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