Article index
All 125 articles on The Credit Question, by section.
Scores & Files
Section page →- The score you are shown is not the score lenders useAug 11, 2026
- Utilisation matters more than most people expectAug 9, 2026
- Checking your own file cannot lower your scoreJul 3, 2026
- The credit blacklist does not existJun 27, 2026
- How long adverse marks last, and what happens the day they drop offJun 24, 2026
- What a credit file leaves outJun 22, 2026
- A thin file reads as an unknown, not as a clean oneJun 18, 2026
- Address history is doing more work than you thinkJun 16, 2026
- Closed accounts keep counting for yearsJun 10, 2026
- Scoring models are statistical, not moralJun 8, 2026
- Settled, satisfied and partially settled are three different outcomesJun 4, 2026
- Your file updates on a schedule nobody tells you aboutJun 2, 2026
- Court judgments and insolvency records on a credit fileMay 29, 2026
- Credit files do not travel across bordersDec 1, 2025
- Payment history is read by recency, not by tallyNov 25, 2025
- Credit builder accounts and what they actually reportNov 23, 2025
- The length of your credit history is quietly doing workNov 18, 2025
- Open banking data now sits beside the credit fileNov 16, 2025
- Score simulators model a score, not a lending decisionNov 13, 2025
- Rent and utility reporting schemes have limits worth knowingNov 8, 2025
- A business debt can end up on your personal fileNov 5, 2025
Borrowing
Section page →- Affordability assessment is not the same as a credit checkAug 5, 2026
- Buy now, pay later is credit, and it is starting to showJul 16, 2026
- Applying for credit leaves a mark, and clustering makes it worseJul 6, 2026
- APR is a comparison tool, not the amount you payMay 24, 2026
- Representative APR means most applicants do not get itMay 22, 2026
- Secured and unsecured borrowing fail differentlyMay 18, 2026
- A longer term lowers the payment and raises the totalMay 16, 2026
- What happens when an application goes to manual underwritingMay 12, 2026
- Overdrafts quietly became an expensive way to borrowMay 9, 2026
- Fixed and variable rates move risk between you and the lenderMay 5, 2026
- Early repayment charges and the cost of clearing a loan soonerMay 3, 2026
- Car finance agreements are three different products in similar brochuresApr 27, 2026
- Why lenders ask what the money is forApr 25, 2026
- Eligibility checkers tell you about a model, not an offerNov 3, 2025
- High-cost short-term credit is priced by the dayOct 31, 2025
- Debt-to-income is the ceiling most applicants meet firstOct 27, 2025
- A decision in principle is not a mortgage offerOct 23, 2025
- Self-employed applicants are assessed on different paperworkOct 19, 2025
- The fees that sit outside the advertised interest rateOct 15, 2025
- When a lender offers less than you asked forOct 14, 2025
- Credit unions and community lenders run on different arithmeticOct 9, 2025
Credit Cards
Section page →- How credit card interest is actually calculatedJul 31, 2026
- The minimum payment is engineered to last for yearsApr 22, 2026
- Cash advances start charging the moment you take the moneyApr 17, 2026
- Payment allocation decides which balance you actually reducedApr 15, 2026
- Carrying a balance does not build credit standingApr 12, 2026
- Statement date, due date and the gap that sets your interestApr 7, 2026
- Three separate charges apply when you spend abroad on a cardApr 4, 2026
- Credit limit increases you did not ask forApr 2, 2026
- Paying by card can give you a claim against the lenderMar 28, 2026
- Persistent debt rules and the letter that eventually arrivesMar 26, 2026
- Rewards pay you a fraction of what interest takes backMar 23, 2026
- Store cards are usually the most expensive card in the walletMar 18, 2026
- A rate increase on a card can often be rejectedMar 16, 2026
- Money transfers from a card are not balance transfersOct 6, 2025
- Deferred interest offers can bill the whole period at onceOct 3, 2025
- Chargebacks are a scheme rule, not a legal rightSep 30, 2025
- Authorisation holds make your available credit lieSep 27, 2025
- Closing a card changes more than one numberSep 22, 2025
- An annual fee only pays for itself under narrow conditionsSep 18, 2025
- Late and over-limit charges cost more than they chargeSep 16, 2025
- Add-on products sold with a card deserve a second lookSep 12, 2025
Repayment
Section page →- Balance transfers work until the promotional period endsJul 29, 2026
- The order to repay debts in, and why people argue about itJul 25, 2026
- What to do first when the payments stop being affordableJul 12, 2026
- Consolidation moves debt; it does not reduce itMar 12, 2026
- What a default actually is, and the months before itMar 8, 2026
- Debt collectors, debt purchasers and who owns your debt nowMar 4, 2026
- Old debts can stop being enforceable, and what restarts the clockMar 2, 2026
- An interest freeze changes the arithmetic more than a lower paymentFeb 26, 2026
- Debt management plans: what they do and what they costFeb 24, 2026
- How to build a repayment plan you will actually finishFeb 18, 2026
- Free debt advice and how to tell it from the paid kindFeb 15, 2026
- When to use savings to clear debt, and when not toFeb 12, 2026
- Priority debts come before credit debtsSep 10, 2025
- Income and expenditure forms are the language creditors work inSep 6, 2025
- Full and final settlement offers and how they land on a fileSep 3, 2025
- Token payments buy time without stopping the clockAug 31, 2025
- Payment holidays are deferrals with a price attachedAug 25, 2025
- Overpayments only help if the lender applies them as you assumeAug 24, 2025
- Insolvency has different names and different consequences everywhereAug 19, 2025
- Enforcement after a judgment, and the limits on itAug 15, 2025
- Rebuilding after a default is evidence, not erasureAug 13, 2025
Errors & Disputes
Section page →- How to get an error off your credit fileJul 23, 2026
- Mistaken identity and how credit files get mixed togetherFeb 8, 2026
- Financial association is the link that outlives the relationshipFeb 6, 2026
- Disputing a default the lender insists is correctFeb 2, 2026
- The paperwork that wins a credit disputeJan 31, 2026
- A paid debt still showing as outstandingJan 26, 2026
- Duplicate entries after a debt is soldJan 24, 2026
- A wrong default date is the most expensive error on a fileJan 19, 2026
- Notices of correction and who actually reads themJan 17, 2026
- Complaints, escalation and the ombudsman routeJan 13, 2026
- Your data rights over a credit reference agencyJan 8, 2026
- Fixing one agency does not fix the othersJan 7, 2026
- A missed payment marker the bank caused itselfAug 8, 2025
- How long a dispute is allowed to takeAug 6, 2025
- The address on your file that was never yoursAug 4, 2025
- An arrangement to pay is being reported, and often wronglyJul 30, 2025
- A closed account still showing as openJul 27, 2025
- Disputing an entry when the lender no longer existsJul 22, 2025
- Insolvency records that outstay their periodJul 20, 2025
- Court records attached to the wrong personJul 16, 2025
- When the dispute fails and the entry was rightJul 12, 2025
Protection
Section page →- Guarantors and joint borrowing carry the whole debtJul 19, 2026
- Protecting a credit file against fraudJul 9, 2026
- What a lender must tell you when it declines youJan 3, 2026
- Automated decisions and the right to ask for a humanDec 29, 2025
- When a loan should not have been granted in the first placeDec 28, 2025
- Withdrawal and cancellation rights on a new credit agreementDec 23, 2025
- Continuous payment authorities and how to stop themDec 19, 2025
- Vulnerability, illness and the support you have to ask forDec 18, 2025
- Scams that specifically target people in debtDec 12, 2025
- Credit repair firms and what they cannot doDec 10, 2025
- Coerced debt and borrowing taken under pressureDec 7, 2025
- What happens to debts when someone diesDec 3, 2025
- A credit freeze stops new lending, not existing debtJul 11, 2025
- Authorised push payment fraud and the contested refundJul 6, 2025
- Capacity, power of attorney and credit agreementsJul 2, 2025
- There are rules about how a collector may contact youJul 1, 2025
- The credit-adjacent data held about you that you never seeJun 25, 2025
- After a data breach, the exposure lasts longer than the headlinesJun 23, 2025
- Untangling joint finances when a relationship endsJun 20, 2025
- A refusal of credit is not a refusal of bankingJun 16, 2025