Errors on your Credit Report can be devastating ! A case study

Nikhil Gupta was all set to buy his first car. He knew that banks check the CIBIL score and report of an individual before sanctioning an auto loan. But these criteria never seemed to bother him. After all, he possessed only a single credit card and always paid the balance in full each month. He had nothing to worry. He had full confidence that he would get the best deal on the auto loan.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t so easy. Forget about getting the best deal he wasn’t even approved for the loan. His request for credit was turned down because he had a fairly low credit score.

Nikhil had never previously bothered to check one of his most important financial items – his Credit Report. This report contains all the information about how you pay your bills, whether you have any liens filed against you or whether you have delinquent accounts.

Your credit report is very important since it determines whether you can get loans, credit cards and sometimes even insurance or a job. (Read : A negative Credit Score can hurt your Job search!)Errors in Credit Report Low Credit Score Loans pic

Rejection of a loan was a major setback but Nikhil was determined to address the problem. When he ordered his credit report he found that he was a victim of identity theft.

Somebody had used his personal financial information to open several credit card accounts. The thief had made several purchases before allowing the accounts to become delinquent. Huge outstanding debts on his report damaged his credit rating. His name showed up in the loans defaulter’s list since past 2 years but he was completely unaware of this fraud. An erroneous delinquency placed on his report led to a 100 point drop in his credit score.

Nikhil filed a police report as well as an online dispute with the credit rating agencies to get the report fixed. But neither the financial institutions nor the credit rating agencies were ready to take the responsibility of the mistake. Nikhil had provided all the relevant information but even after diligent follow ups and numerous phone calls the issue did not get addressed. It took several months before the agency finally completed its investigation process and agreed to remove the entry from his report.

“Dealing with the credit rating agencies to resolve the identity theft issue was a nightmare. Once a fraudulent account information is included in the credit file it is a challenge to get it removed”, said Nikhil. By the time Nikhil was able to get all things sorted his credit score had plummeted by 450 points. All this for no fault of his.

It took almost three years for his credit score to return to its previous heights. “If only I knew the importance of checking my credit report regularly, I would have caught this fraud in time and saved my credit score”, sighed Nikhil.

Thankfully one good thing saved Nikhil during these three years while he was working on improving his credit score. He got to know about loans for bad CIBIL score. So he didn’t have to postpone his plans of buying his dream car. He applied for a car loan for bad credit, wherein the lenders don’t just evaluate the borrowers based on their credit score. These lenders weigh several other factors like income and employment and offer loans for bad credit to people with a low CIBIL score.

Credit report errors are not uncommon. Mistakes in the report have significant life altering financial consequences for borrowers. They have to pay thousands of rupees extra as interest on loans just because errors in the report lower their credit score.

So, if you are looking to get the best deal on loans it is essential to check the accuracy of the credit report. In fact it is a good practice to check the report at regular intervals, so that if you do find a mistake you have sufficient time to get things straightened out.

This guest post has been contributed by the team at CreditSudhaar.

Credit Sudhaar is India’s first credit and finance platform for consumers which provide various credit and financial tools such as free credit score, credit monitoring, credit score simulator among others. Credit Sudhaar provides a wide range of analytical assessments to the users helping them to have an in-depth understanding of their credit health, extends guidance on how to improve CIBIL score and also facilitates access to various loans and credit facilities based on current credit health.

Continue reading : ‘How to check Free Credit Score online?

Kindly note that Relakhs.com is not associated with Credit Sudhaar. This post is for information purposes only. This is a guest post and NOT a sponsored one. We have not received any monetary benefit for publishing this article.

(Post first published on : 16-March-2017)

  • Ramesh says:

    Hi Sreekanth, after CIBIL made one Credit Report available free of charge to people from Jan’17, I registered myself on their website and checked the same in Feb’17. However, using the ‘Raise Dispute’ option I did send them some correction requests, but even after a month, the corrections haven’t been made, while the Dispute is ‘closed’ as noticed in my login on CIBIL website. Also, there are crucial corrections in PAN details which CIBIL hasn’t made, and their contact no mentioned on their website remains unanswered. Seems they expect people to become members on payment of subscription fees to CIBIL even for corrections to one’s Credit Report. Such a shame !

    Regards,
    Ramesh

    • Dear Ramesh,
      You may be correct.
      If PAN is incorrect, suggest you to subscribe to CIBIL report (fee based) and get all the discrepancies corrected at the earliest, your credit score might be at stake!

      • Ramesh says:

        Dear Sreekanth,
        I believed CIBIL would correct the info on my request without becoming a paid member. But, as you mention, maybe that’s the only way to get it corrected. I won’t be applying for any loan anytime soon, so will consider becoming a paid member in due course. Thanks anyway !
        Regards,
        Ramesh

  • RAJ says:

    Dear Sreekanth,
    Excellent article. I suffered initially in CIBIL score, but later i registered online complaint and provided them proof now I AM happy that they have corrected my score from 300 to 800. thanks a lot for your help.

    regards
    RAJ

    • Dear Raj,
      Thank you for sharing your experience.
      How long it took for them to rectify the Error? Also, for the score to go up?

      • RAJ says:

        Hi Sreekanth,

        Since it was a technical error from their side, it took 35 days from their side to rectify the error after I provided them proof regarding all the mistakes. Major mistakes were from the banks, they had NOT updated the loan cleared data to CIBIL. Loans taken in 2011 were also shown as NOT CLEARED. I took clearence certificate (AS YOU MENTIONED IN YOUR BLOG) from the bank and uploaded the same to CIBIL. I think, they re-verified with the banks and finally after 35 days the score was 800 automatically. Inbetween, there was some confusion. Score was showing as 753. Now all data is clear in my account section of cibil. THANK YOU FOR THE HELP. You must be remembering, i had asked about all these in your blog “How to get your Free Credit Score & Annual Credit Report online? | CIBIL, Equifax or Experian Credit Report”.

        regards
        RAJ

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