Hi
Just thought I’d share a quick update about fines being recorded on your credit report.
Had confirmation from the courts that a fine does not appear on your credit report while there is a payment arrangement in place.
I haven’t tested that yet. Certainly its worth advising the courts that as a condition of your payment arrangement to them you don’t wish them to add any entries on your credit report.
I wonder if that is true in other cases. Certainly in my case the bank advised that they would not enter into any formal payment arrangement and they even returned my cheques to me. Certainly then there is reason to list a default on a credit report, when they have the choice as to whether they accept a formal payment arrangment or not. If no formal payment arrangment has been set up its reason enough for the banks to move debt outside of the regulated banking industry to a body that is entirely unregulated. Once debt becomes due the repayment of it is entirely out of the debtors control. In my case a debt collector was able to substantially increase the debt against me after the debt went to the disputes tribunal. I found out that commission charged by the collection agent is actually only $2.00 per month and the real interest was a lot less that what had actually been charged to me. This same debt collector was able to demand I pay them 70% of my income to them without consideration as to my ability to pay or what I may owe to other creditors. The bank are still using this same collection agent. I hope the same thing is not happening to others. Debt collectors also front load a debt with default costs at around 17%. Part of the laws I’d like to have changed is the regulation of debt collection industry entirely and for the true cost of charges to be made available to the debtor. I’ve asked the bank under the privacy act for a transaction list but they chose not to respond. Also had confirmation from another bank that the purpose of credit reporting is to show any defaults. Because the industry is unregulated creditors are free to not accept any payment arrangments in order that a default listing can appear on a debtors credit report. This alerts other creditors that a default is outstanding, notwithstanding that there is no ceiling to the amount that a debt can continue to increase by. Also I have evidence that the burden of proof is on the debtor to prove that a listing on their credit report is incorrect. If you do query a entry with a credit reporter they will ask you for proof. Their burden of prove to list a debt is on the word only of the listing subscriber. The privacy act does not require debt to be legally valid before it is listed.