Uk Bad Credit Second Mortgage, information?

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Q. Over the last couple of days, I have received two letters from Lowell Financial (The Lowell Group), informing me in the first letter that they had bought a debt of £1191.37 from MBNA - Alliance and Leicester (addressed to me, but to a 'Miss' instead of a 'Ms'), and in the second letter (addressed to my first name, but a different surname ['Moulding', instead of my surname 'Martin'])that they had bought another debt of £4335.08 from MBNA - UK, with both letters demanding immediate payment of just over £5,526. Now in both cases, I have no knowledge of ever having an account with MBNA - Alliance and Leicester/MBNA -UK. I first assumed this was a case of mistaken identity or identity theft, and on receiving the first letter, rang up Lowell Financial to query this. I was asked if I had ever lived in Preston (which I haven't) and I was then told that they had probably got the names and date of births mixed up and not to worry, they would redirect things back to their trace department. They also told me to distroy the letters as they would be dealing with the matter. My first instinct was to keep ahold of these letters in case I got any future demands from them about these debts, especially if they cock things up and this ends up in court. On receiving the second letter yesterday, I rang them up again this morning to make sure this was indeed being sorted out, and was told by a rather bored 'fully trained advisor' that she would pass things onto their trace department. What worries me quite a bit is that through their cock-up, I may have a bad credit rating, and have no way of finding out about this. I'd like to get a mortgage in a few years when the housing market has calmed down, and would hate to think that this name mix-up will stuff up my chances of ever getting a secure loan again. I am contemplating writing them a letter to get it clarified in writing that this has all been sorted out, so that I at least have a leg to stand on if it appears I do have a bad credit rating because of this. Is there anything else I should be doing? Should I enlist the help of a solicitor to sort this all out?

A. -There is no single thing called a "credit rating". There are facts about your history of credit, held by the credit reference agencies, which those to whom you apply for credit may read to assist them to make a decision. If the "facts" on these databases are incorrect then you can get them changed. There are two main UK credit reference agencies, who are required by statue to supply you with a copy of your own entry for £2 (is that right?), and who have processes to challenge any entries which are wrong. But it's very unlikely that this matter will have reached those databases yet. You could ask for the letter as you suggest and then check with the agencies before you intend to apply for credit to see if there is anything untoward on your record. This page is helpful: http://money.msn.co.uk/life_events/debt/insight/YourCreditRating/Cred itReferenceAgenciesexplained/default.asp http://tinyurl.com/8z33x -I'm not a lawyer, IIRC they can't start proceedings against you unless they've exhausted trying to sort it out between yourselves (was for small claims, though it sounds reasonable for larger claims as well). In any case, if I were you I'd write them a letter asking them to explain how the debt came about. I wouldn't give them any more information than they should already know - which means keep your real name out of the letter entirely or reproduce their "typographical" errors if you think a nameless letter is too awkward. (Is this legal?) It is possible someone else with a similar name to yours got traced by their people, who concluded it was you.

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Uk Bad Credit Second Mortgage, information?

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