The Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) received a number of complaints in the first quarter of this year relating to serious credit infringements being listed by a financial services provider (FSP) on clients' personal credit files.
In the winter edition of its quarterly Circular publication, FOS said it had contacted the FSP to advise that serious infringements had been listed even though the FSP had not sufficiently determined that applicants no longer intended to comply with their credit obligations.
FOS also advised the FSP it would review whether serious credit infringement listings had been made against other customers without a reasonable basis to believe they would no longer comply with credit obligations.
The FSP advised FOS that all the relevant disputes had involved third party tracing agents, but following a review of some of those listings FOS determined a high proportion had been made incorrectly and that the issue was systemic.
In addition to asking the FSP to advise of the removal of incorrect listings, FOS asked the FSP to formally consider, case by case, any claims for non-financial loss from customers whose listing was made in error.
In a separate but similar case, a complainant said his FSP had not correctly assessed his application for hardship assistance regarding a hire purchase agreement for which he had acted as guarantor.
FOS found the FSP had listed a commercial debt on the applicant's personal credit file that could not be considered credit under the relevant legislation and was therefore an inappropriate listing.
Again, after a review FOS found a number of incorrect default listings and determined that the issue was systemic. FOS asked the FSP to correct the incorrect listings and to provide copies of its policies and procedures relating to default listing business guarantors on their personal credit files.
