If you’ve been refused credit in the past you may be concerned that your past may affect your future. This may not always be the case but here are 10 things about blacklists that you should be aware of.
- Blacklists are not unlawful.
- Following the Race Relations Act 1976, many lenders and traders renamed their blacklists to ‘refer lists’.
- Credit managers frequently meet in ‘credit circles’ to exchange information informally about slow payers and fraudulent attempts to obtain monies by deception.
- Following widespread failure to obtain successful prosecution of mortgage fraudsters via the Police and the Serious Crimes Office, mortgage lenders formed the Association of Mortgage Lenders in the early 1980’s to share information on fraudulent mortgage applications…
- Credit card operators first operated and shared a ‘hot card list’ of cards reported stolen or known to be in fraudulent use. That list now includes cards that are over limit, amongst other things.
- Our government publishes a Sanctions List of persons who cannot be commercially traded with and whose assets must be seized if identified by a bank or other company.
- Individuals at over 100,000 private addresses in the UK are listed at CIFAS– the UK’s Fraud Prevention Service…
- Insurance companies share claim data on the CUE database – the Claims Underwriting Exchange – to protect themselves from claim abuse.
- A £2 statutory credit file request, made by consumers under sections 7 and 9 of the Data Protection Act 1998, does not require a credit reference agency to provide details of fraud database entries…
- Credit reference agencies do not maintain nor publish a general credit blacklist of persons who may not be provided credit.
To see more detail on each of these points see this detailed article by Check My File
You can access your own credit report here
Or, speak with us about any concerns