So much for credit checks then, Matey

By Lisa Buckingham for the Daily Mail
Updated: 03:49 EST, 30 January 2006

 

THERE it was nestling in the pile on the mat by the front door looking for all the world like yet another piece of junk mail. The address, even the postcode, was correct. The name, however, was distinctly unfamiliar. Mr Mean Matey might exist, he might live somewhere. But it is certainly not with me.

My first suspicion, that this was a humourous piece of marketing for the 'extremely attractive' platinum credit card offer within, evaporated as I noticed the letter was from an American bank - Morgan Stanley. American banks are not renowned for their sense of fun.

A call to Morgan Stanley the following day revealed that the bank buys its direct mail lists from the respected credit agency Experian. In this case, Experian had bought another list of names to supplement its own from a company called Dataworks, whose information was compiled from an 'online lifestyle' survey - whatever that might be.

The bank was at a loss. Did some prankster high on the joy of participating in a lifestyle survey enter my address? Did a member of Morgan Stanley's staff decide to change the name?

Coincidentally, a colleague discovered last week that one of the major credit reference agencies could not find her postcode in its database while another firm, Equifax, had her catalogued as 'dormant', even though she is an enthusiastic user of her plastic.

The point of all this is to show what utter rubbish the banks were spouting last week when they sought to defend themselves against charges of irresponsible lending to credit card customers.

 

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A survey by cost-comparison site uswitch.com revealed that nine out of ten borrowers were issued with credit cards without the lender conducting any checks to ensure the the debt was affordable.

Ah, said the banks, we examine credit references. That, presumably, will be with the likes of faultless Experian and Equifax. In addition, they said, we rely on applicants providing accurate information - just like Mr Mean Matey did.

The banks may now be rejecting more applications than they used to, but that does not stop them sending out mountains of invitations for credit. And it is insulting consumers' intelligence to claim that they stick to a rigorous checking process other than when it suits them.