I had a credit card from SCB in 2002-03 with some overdue history. In October 2003, I agreed on a settlement plan, paid the amount and got a settlement letter from SCB. There were no communications from SCB after that and I thought the account was ‘closed’ for good. I was too ignorant at that time about the difference between ‘closed’ and ‘settled’.
Fortunately my financial position and wisdom improved over time and had a healthy financial history from 2004 onwards. I successfully paid-off and closed a Bike Loan, 2 Hire purchase Loans, 1 Home Loan and 1 Car Loan since 2004 and hold 2 credit cards with an excellent payment track. All my loans from 2004 are reported in CIBIL appropriately.
Suddenly after 10 years of the transaction I had with SCB, a NBFC to whom SCB sold its operations in 2010 has been contacting me asking to pay an ‘outstanding’ amount and also told me that the matter has been reported to CIBIL as negative rating. What was surprising is that in 2011, when I applied for a car loan and accessed CIBIL, there was no records of any outstanding with respect to SCB or the NBFC .
I am very confused and disappointed, especially after maintaining healthy financial status for nearly 10 years, bad days are back to haunt me.
I would like to know what options I have now to get this cleared. I have not accessed my latest CIBIL report yet.
· Is the bank or NBFC correct is claiming ‘outstanding’ after 10 years. Is it legally correct to update CIBIL with a negative rating by an NBFC from which I have/had not financial relationship and using the ‘settlement’ flag to extract money? If there is a record against this Card in my CIBIL now, I believe this should be dated 2003 and not recent since I have not defaulted recently.
· Should I pay the outstanding that is being claimed now since I can afford it, or should I fight with NBFC/SCB since they have not provided me proper details at the time of settlement?
· If I choose not to pay, how this will affect my CIBIL rating and score. Will CIBIL ignore since this is 10 years old and my financial track is good since then. Since I had closed this almost 10 years, is there a possibility of my CIBIL score and ranking getting affected due to this?
I checked out in the internet and came across numerous complaints against SCB and the NBFC and some of the instances also talked about no adherence of promise made by NBFC to clean CIBIL. Post clearing overdue.
Please guide me so that I can come out of this mess. I was about to avail a home loan this year and this whole thing is affecting my plans.
Thanks in advance.