A consumer was denied home loan because CIBIL mixed up his credit history or record with someone else. Another was denied a loan due to gender mismatch. This could happen to you as well
Moneylife and Moneylife Foundation have been continuously raising question on the quality of credit reports and data in India. Here is a shocking case of Umesh Dhawan, who
was denied a home loan of Rs5 lakh because his credit history or record data was mixed up with someone else, who was a defaulter. Mr Dhawan has been wrongly blaming ICICI Bank for the problem, while Credit Information Bureau (India) (CIBIL) was at fault.
CIBIL, the credit bureau while accepting its mistake in merging the credit record of Mr Dhawan with another person, has issued an apology and sent a fresh credit report to him, after a mail from Moneylife and strong intervention by ICICI Bank to which we forwarded the customer’s complaint. Even then, CIBIL provided ICICI Bank with an apology meant for the customer and not directly to Mr Dhawan. An explanation was forthcoming only when Moneylife wrote to CIBIL.
While Mr Dhawan’s record would be cleared, there may be several such cases where a person's credit record or data is mixed up with someone else. In a similar case, a senior financial consultant, DM Mahalaxmi also had to go through the same trauma. The question therefore is who will compensate for the loss of repute and trauma experienced by Mr Dhawan and Ms Mahalaxmi.
“Credit information submitted to CIBIL pertained to Umesh Uhawan who had taken a joint loan with Rahul Biswas. Since information pertaining to Umesh Uhawan and Umesh Dhawan were similar, the system matched the details pertaining to Umesh Uhawan with Umesh Dhawan,” CIBIL said in an email to Moneylife.
However, this raises bigger question on the credibility of credit bureaus, their data and ability to crunch the data. Matching data fields like name, date of birth, address, telephone numbers and identifiers like PAN, passport number and voter ID card is a challenge, especially in a country like India. However, over the years credit bureaus like CIBIL have developed an algorithm that is supposed to consider several fields before making a match.
When information in relation to a person whose credit information report (CIR) is to be obtained is fed into the system, a best possible CIR is generated based on the match rules with the available data. When sufficient data elements between two sets of personal data overlap, the information of two different accounts are merged in the CIR, CIBIL said.
In the case of Mr Dhawan, CIBIL said, “Based on the dispute raised by the consumer, we had done an in-depth analysis, it was observed based on the data submitted to us and our match riles, the CIR generated for the consumer had details of another individual mixed in the consumer’s report. We have immediately taken corrective action to separate the information.”
This is a verbatim of the reply received by Ms Mahalaxmi from CIBIL. There may be several such cases, but the credit bureau has refused to divulge the numbers. It said, "The rate at which incorrect merges occur at CIBIL is very low, and is competitive with bureaus of similar size and maturity globally.” Strangely, CIBIL is not answerable to the public as it continues to have a near monopoly on customer credit data or records.
CIBIL is also silent on the exact number of fields that are matched before deciding to merge data of two persons and creating a single CIR. “When enough data elements
between two sets of personal data overlap, the information for the two subjects is merged together. The rules, which decide when enough data has overlapped to trigger a merge have evolved over the lifetime of CIBIL, based on annual analysis of the overall consumer dataset. In order to present the consolidated credit history of a person in a credit information report there are a few sets of match rules. The CIR is generated only when such rules are satisfied,” it said.
In the case of Mr Dhawan, were the fields like date of birth, address, PAN number, matched? Looks unlikely. This also means there is something wrong in the process itself.
Moneylife has been raising the issue of credit tracking system, which the above mentioned incidents show, is still in a mess and crippling financial life for no fault of the consumer.
According to sources, following the letter from Moneylife Foundation to Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor D Subbarao on 13 December 2012, there has been quite some progress on the issues. The RBI has also set up a task force address some of the data parity problems between credit bureaus and lenders, the sources said.
Earlier, following the complaint letter, the RBI has asked banks and financial institutions (FIs) to share historical data with new credit bureaus, of which they had become members.
The financial literacy initiative of Moneylife Foundation, has led to the discovery that credit-tracking remains faulty in several ways. The Foundation also discovered that licensing of four credit bureaus without a level playing field, in terms of access to credit information and historical data, has created a system that is not functioning as it was supposed to.
Moneylife Foundation, through a day-long workshop and counselling on credit reports and issues and through few case studies, also discovered that most of the lenders only look at CIBIL data while others do not even bother to look at a credit report at all before making lending decisions.
There has been much discussion over the accuracy of the data in consumer reports. In general, industry participants maintain that the data in credit reports is very accurate. The credit bureaus point to their own study of 52 million credit reports to highlight that the data in reports is very accurate. The Consumer Data Industry Association testified before the US Congress that less than 2% of those reports that resulted in a consumer dispute had data deleted because it was in error. Nonetheless, there is widespread concern that information in credit reports is prone to error. Thus, the Congress has enacted a series of laws aimed to resolve both the errors and the perception of errors.
However, the goof up in the above mentioned two examples of Mr Dhawan and Ms Mahalaxmi, clearly highlights the need for audits and scrutiny of credit bureaus as well.
NOTE: If you are facing similar issue, you may want to get help from Moneylife Foundation's free Credit Helpline http://www.freecredithelp.in/
V Kumar
2 days agoI personally say one thing, Credit Sudhaar has nothing to do with Cibil. They are just fraudsters who are collecting money from people who are trying to make their Cibil good.
Miteysh H Shah
In Reply to V Kumar 8 hours agoWhy don't we file complain together?
venkateshwar rao
3 months agoI faced same situation where I interacted Mr. Nikhil a manager and Suchitra who used to tell to clear my CIBIL score. I paid nearly Rs 70000 to the banks as per their advice and there is no improvement in score and updation in CIBIL. When I contacted them suchitra says she has resigned and Nikhil says that is not his duty to see to update in CIBIL. These fellows simply cheating people saying one thing before the payment and do nothing after payment.
Miteysh H Shah
9 months agoYes this article has point. Me too has been cheated. credit sudhar person Dipesh Gawas promises to resolve my problems & for ₹39000 & also improve my scores.
After payment done, he stopped replying my calls & emails. Than priyanka came till call confirmation stage & than she also disappeared.
Now 3 months passed, nothing moved further so I asked for refund. New person mr. Amol talking to me, said money is non refundable, we are just advisory company.
I sent lots of emails to Dipesh because he promised me after long discussion, but not a single reply from him.
Victims here, interested in gathering & going to there office?
V Kumar
In Reply to Miteysh H Shah 2 days agoI personally say, Directly approach nearest police station and file an FIR, then the So-called Company Directors, and MD, CEO will come to you and let the world know what the hell the Credit Sudhaar is.
pavan kusu
In Reply to Miteysh H Shah 2 months agoYes I am interested to come
Miteysh H Shah
In Reply to pavan kusu 8 hours agoPs call 9099808960 ,
sourabh panigrahi
9 months agothey have asked and i have deposited 17000 rupess for plus loan to repair my cibil but now they are not picking up the calls not disburseing the plus loan i think i have been cheated and my hard earned 17000 is gone please help me what should i do
Miteysh H Shah
In Reply to sourabh panigrahi 9 months agoWe all victims should go together at credit sudhar office for this.
Sucheta Dalal
In Reply to sourabh panigrahi 9 months agoYou can waste money or look for other options that are free. Why dont you check out https://www.facebook.com/moneylifedailyclinics/photos/pcb.1898713876839981/1898713050173397/?type=3&theater
or http://www.freecredithelp.in
Ajaya Kumar vaidyan
12 months agoit is waste of money and do not go for it is nothing but waisting time
pl instead go directly to negotiate and close the issue. the company cheeting
cyril jobs
12 months agoPersonal experience and how i got to solve it with his help .....Bad credit?was it possible to buy a house with bad credit?This was the Question i keep asking myself for years before i finally came across someone who enlightened me.I didn't really get the trick of attaining minimum credit score to buy a house and getting away from bankruptcy,clearing credit card debts and buying a house which is precisely the situation I am in. I had to declare bankruptcy 3 years ago and am working to build back my credit, but it's a very slow process. I need to move for a job and therefore need to buy a new home.Y'all shouldn't pray for such of mess i'm into.The enlightenment by a friend who worked with a repair company taught me how to seek assistance from credit repair expert who knows exactly what your credit score needs and how to get collections removed,get credit card free of debts and and getting off bankruptcy.Get in touch with Hackmania_9 (outlook.com) for any hack job you so desire.
Sucheta Dalal
In Reply to cyril jobs 9 months agoplease make the effort to check this http://www.freecredithelp.in it is free
CR Banzarey
1 year agoCreditsudhaar.com has been asking continuously for Rs 19-20 thousand to repair my credit information report, which has negative score according to [email protected] What is the fact?
Mr Akshay has been saying that he will repair my CIR and credit score, and get my BT resolved. But he wants thousands of rupees to do it.
Sucheta Dalal
In Reply to CR Banzarey 9 months agoAs far as we know, there is no FREE lunch. The process of repairing credit is slow and requires you to work at it. check out http://www.freecredithelp.in
GMK
2 years agoi am agree, with above information. Credit sudhaar simply making fool others. i also paid amount 14000/- but no result even they spoiled my certain track record. even the staff also misguiding . my counseller is Mr.amoul and the sales person Mr.Yesh Parik they never respond or never picked up calls.lots of things. request to the others please don't waste your time and money .
Shashi Mishra
2 years agoWorst service. Don’t ever trust on them as they will give fake promises and later on turn out. Initially they will tell you that they will improve your cibil and get the black marked things out from your record, but once you will pay them huge amount their promises get vanished. Don’t trust them they are fraud.
Vinay Kadalagi
2 years agoCredit sudhar is a purely a scam. Do not believe the credit scores they show on their website. My current score is 783 but on their website it is still 550. They mislead people to earn money. Better rectify your issues on your own, it will take time but not impossible.
Harjeet Matharu
2 years agoHi,
I might be the most disappointed customer of the Credit Sudhaar services and certainly would not recommend this to anybody. I had doubt about your company and its services even prior to the subscription per the reviews available on multiple webpages and blogs. I still took a leap of faith and went ahead with services but Credit Sudhaar proved me wrong. Every time I experienced disappointment from a new person at Credit Sudhaar.
Let me tell you my story of grievance now. On May 27th, 2016 Usha was the first lady to call and convinced me for the subscription. That was the day when I made a blunder of joining with Credit Sudhaar services.
As soon I paid for the services my case was assigned to Pooja Raut, unexpectedly she left the case only just after 3-4 days. Nobody followed up on the case up-to a week and when I called myself at the customer care and asked for her, I was surprised to know that she had left the organization. I was promised the case will be taken care of and a new counsellor will be assigned to my case soon.
Then waiting for about 3-4 days, I received a call from Veena on 5th June, 2016. I already had enough dissatisfying experience from Credit Sudhaar that I told her just to drop the case and requested for a full refund. She then assured me that it won’t happen again and urged to give a last chance to Credit Sudhaar to convert the bad experience to a good one. She had been good in following up on regular basis but the resolution outcome was least.
On Aug 5th, 2016 I received the last response from her and she also left the case in between.
Again, in shock I called the helpline and got to know that she has been moved to a different dept. and a new counsellor will be assigned to the case soon.
Now, at this point you can understand the level of frustration I had. Then after 44 days on Sep 19th, 2016 I received an email from Gilbert Benjamin, who introduced himself as a new counselor for my case. In deep pain, I told him my whole concern that how I have been struggling to find a solution for my problem and every month the case is passed on to a new person. I was assured by him that the case will now be taken care on a personal note and this will not be repeated. I know that man as the most dedicated and helpful to understand and empathize my concern. He put himself into my shoes and understood the pain. He genuinely followed up on the case. I received last response from him on Oct 12th, 2016 and then all of a sudden he disappeared. I wrote him a few emails to contact me but got no response. Waited for more than a month but nobody from Credit Sudhaar followed up.
Then once again a new email comes Credit Sudhaar on Nov 21st, 2016. Rahul Sharma expressed himself as a newly appointed person for my case and again the same reason was given to me that last person has been moved to a different dept. and no longer available to follow up on the case. I upfront refused him to follow up since I can’t bear this anymore. His manager Kaynat called me today and asked to write an email to withdraw the case and get the refund.
Currently, I am so pissed off with your services. I earn by doing hard work and paid Rs. 5724/- towards my CIBIL score improvement and not for this mental harassment. I have been experiencing nothing but disappointment from Credit Sudhaar and you have hardly contributed to improve my score. This is a setback for me and I feel like cheated by every person of yours. I don’t need any further support from Credit Sudhaar. Since it was promised to me by Veena if we fail to provide a solution you are worthy of a full refund. Now, because all of this pain I ask Credit Sudhaar to refund full amount paid towards the services back to my account ASAP.
Harjeet
Miteysh H Shah
In Reply to Harjeet Matharu 9 months agoVictims are going together at credit sudhar office, anyone here would like to join ?
Sucheta Dalal
In Reply to Harjeet Matharu 2 years agoWe request you to check out the work at Moneylife Foundation, a not for profit organisation. http://foundation.moneylife.in At our Daily Clinics on Friday, between 5 pm and 7 pm we have a senior banker devoting time to help individuals like you sort our their problems. This guidance is provided FREE. There are no strings attached. Nor is there any attempt to sell you any product or service. We are surprised that more people do not take advantage of this instead of spending money on paid services.
You must however remember that our counsellors will offer advice, guidance and hand-holding. You will have to do the work yourself. But then, it is your life, your credit history and your financial life at stake. You must invest the time in sorting it out.
While you are on the website, do look under EVENTS and watch some videos on credit scores and credit related issues. Those are also FREE and will help you make your future financial life problem free.
Kishan Makwana
In Reply to Sucheta Dalal 11 months agoMAM I NEED TO TALK FOR CREDIT CARD DUES. WHICH DATE I CAN COME FOR THAT ?
R.Mekala
3 years agoshall i get personal loan from
credit suddhar
Ishika
In Reply to R.Mekala 3 years agoDear Sir/Madam,
Credit Sudhaar will first help you to check your credit score and if its healthy only then they will recommend you to go for a loan. If the score is low below the minimum required limit they will help you to increase it and make you eligible for a loan. I would advise you to go for a loan via credit sudhaar.
Ishika
In Reply to R.Mekala 3 years agoDear Sir/Madam,
Credit Sudhaar will first help you to check your credit score and if its healthy only then they will recommend you to go for a loan. If the score is low below the minimum required limit they will help you to increase it and make you eligible for a loan. I would advise you to go for a loan via credit sudhaar.
KKABIRR
4 years agohi all ,
i have got best service from credit sudhaar
My Cibil score has been rectified really appreciating and highly recommended
Anand Pagare
4 years agoYes, it seems all they are cheater they.. How can they ask for money payment to increase the credit- sudhar, this is not the correct way. There is something need to by New Government..
Where is Acche Din? for the peoples who are suffering due to low credit score?
This policy should be in Aam Adamin favor only.
Who can able to take responsibility?
Praveen
4 years agoplease don't go with credit Sudhar they are the cheaters