www.iva.co.uk

Well I have been IVA free for 2 years now...woohoo I hear some of your say. But 2 years down the line and I still feel like I'm being penalised. After 'the letter' to say I was free and all done and dusted I took out a small credit card to build my credit rating and I have paid it off in full every month without fail. I have a 'good' credit rating on Experian & Equifax 925/999 score. I decided to apply for a loan and did a soft search and was potentially offered 80% chance of 3.1%i -3.5% interest rate with several lenders (better than 6-12 mths ago when it was 8-12%) so I selected one and went to the site. This one site offered to check again my chances of getting this low interest with them, it came back great a 70% chance and did I want to apply. So I did a full application. It came back with the loan accepted but with a whopping 12.9% and an extra £3000 interest on top!!! My question is did I end up in the 30% of NOT getting the lower rate because somewhere they dug up my past IVA. I took the risk of applying and now it will show on my credit file! So really you are never free of it despite not having defaulted on anything for the last 8 years including a sofa I managed to get on interest free credit 3 years ago and never missed a payment and the last 2 years with my credit card and the last 9 years in a phone contract!! Fedup.com Needless to say I haven't taken the loan so they are bombarding me with emails and even sent the paperwork in the post. This was with the AA so be warned people

It is possible that they have the IVA on file due to one of your former creditors being in the same group of companies or it could just be down to the lottery that seems to prevail these days --- acceptance for credit and good rates can, it seems, be as much down to the time of the month or fianacial year and how they are doing with new sign ups --- if they have reached target some lenders up the rates to get some "bonus" borrowers on board at juicy rates.

I would, however, check all three credit reference agencies files, just to make sure they are clean.

It's possible that your credit file is still showing something incorrectly but it's impossible to say for sure without seeing it. I'm not a big fan of the predicted rates that the credit reference agencies give you because the truth is they don't no. Lenders' own credit scores are guarded in secrecy so there is no way of them really knowing. I suspect that it may be possible to secure a much more competitive rate than you have been quoted however, based on what you say.