London, United Kingdom -- (SBWIRE) -- 04/15/2011 -- Compounding the difficulties posed by lenders for people trying to get mortgages, there is new evidence that credit rating agencies are becoming the cause of further misery in the UK.

James Daley at consumers group Which? says that an increasing number of people are victims of ‘mistraces’, where a debt is attributed to the wrong person. “There is no easy way to get it reversed,” he says. “It’s a very frustrating system for consumers and you can easily run into a dead end.”

The three main credit agencies in the UK, Equifax, Experian and Callcredit, hold details on almost everyone in the country and their information is used every time you apply for a credit card, a bank account a mobile phone or – most importantly – a mortgage.

“They can put a full stop to your financial life,” says Marc Gander, one of the founders of Consumer Action Group. “They are hugely powerful. And yet there is no visible, transparent means of appeal. They are unregulated and out of control.”

Gander argues that they are unaccountable and shirk their responsibility by simply saying that they cannot check on each item of information individually.

The only real fallback if you believe you have been given an incorrect rating is to contact the Financial Ombudsman Service, which says it receives ‘hundreds’ of such complaints each year.

Otherwise, it may pay to keep a close eye on your credit rating, so that you can take swift action if anything appears to be wrong.

Original comment can be found at The Mortgage Advisory http://www.theadvisory.co.uk/quick-house-sale-blog/2011/04/the-misery-of-credit-rating-agencies/