There seems to be a growing trend where credit providers are asking for payment to produce documents that relate to their client’s affairs.
We look carefully at documents relating to your credit providers
With credit repair a very important part of verifying if a negative credit listing can be removed from a credit file involves studying documents that relate to the account in question and the listing of the negative credit item such as a payment default, for people wishing to fix their credit file the ability to obtain these documents is imperative.
Such documents include copies of bills, demand letters that were sent, customer notes etc. The reason that such documents are so important is a credit provider is legally obliged to follow a very strict process prior to recording a negative credit listing, often upon investigating such documents, it is revealed that the credit provider did not follow this process and therefore must remove the default or other negative credit listings.
It is important to remember that a negative credit listing is merely an allegation of wrongdoing and nothing more. The problem is other credit providers react to credit listings as if they are all 100% correct and will often refuse people finance as a result. It’s very much like accusing someone of a crime, putting them in jail and only releasing them once they are found to be innocent, Our credit reporting platform is very much a guilty until proven innocent process.
Does this sound fair? We don’t think so.
To make things even worst some credit providers are wanting to charge their clients’ money for the very documents that could prove their innocents. Can you imagine someone that has been accused of a crime and put into jail, they then find that there are documents in existents that could show they didn’t commit the crime and therefore they would be released. The person holding these documents then says “I will only produce these documents if you pay me the money” it’s outrageous but this is precisely what is happening.
In order for a credit provider to substantiate the validity of a credit violation they must produce the supporting documentation when requested by their client or authorised third party, there is a law that covers this however this law does not state they cannot charge for doing so. While I appreciate the gathering of such documents can be time-consuming credit providers must keep in mind that when they default list a client it can have a very negative effect on their lives as it almost certainly means they will have a very difficult time securing future credit. To list a negative credit item and then want to charge money to produce the very documents that could show the action was not correct is in my opinion highly irresponsible and completely unfair.
I have seen examples of credit providers wanting to charge up to $500.00 to produce such documents, this is clearly obstructive behaviour and an attempt to put off the client in pursuing their innocents.
If a credit provider refuses to produce documents or decides to charge money to do so the client would be within their legal rights to report the matter to the appropriate Ombudsman and/or the credit reporting agencies directly.