Poor credit rating - not my fault!

[Pisces1981]

Hi, I am asking for some advice on behalf of my younger sister. She recently discovered that her credit rating was poor due to a defaulted payment from a catalogue. This meant the debt accrued on the catalogue was sold to a debt management company. This has resulted in her being told that she will be unable to secure any credit such as a mortgage for up to 6 years.

However, the fault does not lie with my sister it is actually the fault of our mother. When my sister was out of the country for 1 year working abroad a catalogue came to our family home in her name. My Mother took it upon herself to order products, amounting to over £600, in my sister's name. Our Mum missed many repayments and hence the debt was sold on. She did not mention this to my sister and as a consequence my sister had to discover this for herself via a credit report and her mortgage broker.

Although, the debt has now been paid in full there are still repercussions for my sister. Obviously, my sister is extremely distressed about this because it essentially means that she is being punished for another person's mistake and she has absolutely no adverse credit elsewhere and she had saved money for a deposit.

She has contacted the companies and nobody is willing to remove the information. Her mortgage broker has suggested her only solution is to get the police involved.

Can anyone please give me some advise that I can pass on to my sister as I feel devastated that she has found herself in this situation; I will add that we do have some issues with our Mum as she has proved untrustworthy in other aspects of our life so our loyalty, at this time, is not with her.

I'd appreciate any advice or if anyone has similar experiences.

Thanks!

Your mum has committed fraud so you could involve the police.

i would get the police involved too. if it had been a stranger that had done this you wouldnt think twice about involving them. your dm has committed a crime.

hope she can get it sorted... a crap credit rating for 6 years can cause many problems

Thanks for the advice so far. I personally think you're right that the police is her only option if she is to move forward with her life.

Thanks for the advice so far. I personally think you're right that the police is her only option if she is to move forward with her life.

If you're in Scotland, contact the police.

If in England - Actionfraud

Some forces in England will tell you it's a civil matter and they can do nothing. An Incident Log Number from Action Fraud is usually enough to get things moving.

Playing Devil's advocate here, one of the basic fraud profile questions usually goes along the lines of "When you moved away did you inform your creditor?" so this may cause an issue. However, given that the Default is now Paid and there is no benefit to the debt collection agency (i.e. if you don't pay we'll apply one) and ILN should be enough.

Write to the compliance department of the company that registered the default.