Credit score problem

[Andy008]

I have recently moved house and have immediately registered this change on the electoral roll. Does anyone know if the frequency of moving addresses has any negative impact on credit scoring ?

I have now settled a loan account which was 2 months in arrears and the loan provider has told me that this settlement has now been reported back to the credit reference agencies.
I had previously applied for two credit cards and a new mobile phone contract in December, all of which were declined, due to this arrears problem which I did not find out about until the middle of January. I registered with Experian for their online credit scoring service and found that falling behind with the loan had caused my credit score to be dramatically reduced which I believe is the likely cause of the rejections.

I have found Experian's customer service to be dubious at best, so can anyone tell me that the settlement of the loan amount will repair the damage to my credit score, or if not, what steps I should take in order to do that?

I was in a branch of Barclays earlier today and spoke to a manager who told me that the recent "credit crunch" had no impact on credit scoring or the amount of credit applications rejected and that this was just media hysteria. Can anyone confirm if this is true?

Thanks.

[CheekyChops]

Well Egg have just cancelled the credit cards of thousands of people who are deemed to be a credit risk so if that isn't an impact of the 'credit crunch' then I don't know what is.

The late payments on your loan will still show on your file and affect your score for months. Moving house also has a negative impact unfortunately.

[Finance Guy]

1) moving house has no negative impact, unless its a regular thing. Two addresses in the last three years, for example, would be deemed quite normal. Anybody assessing you for credit may ask for proof of residency (up to date utility bill for example) for your new address, until you show on the electoral roll.

Electoral roll records are normally sent to credit reference agencies every January, around 6 months after council records are updated.

Your two months arrears will show now as settled, but will not drop off your credit file for around 18 months.

Every payment you make on time will gradually improve your credit file, with the 12 month mark being the most significant, in terms of improving credit standing. Lenders mainly look at the last 12 months payments.

Get a copy of your file at

www.experian.co.uk
www.equifax.co.uk

Good luck, hope this helps

[ethandron]

Having helped to build credit score systems at a bank that is a household name in the UK I can assure you that living at the same address for more than 3 years will give you a bigger score than living at a number of different addresses for the same period. Banks are looking for stability. Banks also have less money to lend at the moment, because of the credit crunch, so will cherry pick those with higher credit scores.