How Missed Loan Payments and Multiple Applications Hurt Your Credit Score
Credit Fix Solutions, a leading credit repair firm, has offered credit reporting education to families, finance brokers and business owners across Australia since 2014. They are an award-winning credit reporting repair company with offices across the country and now into New Zealand as of 2024.
Their partner law firm Credit Fix Lawyers also offers free advice to consumers and business owners, helping them protect their credit reports and scores to ensure that the best lending options are open to people for their future wealth creation journeys.
The Painful Lack of Financial Literacy
The credit repair assessments team at Credit Fix Solutions see around 20 credit reports per day, and it’s a huge concern that many Aussies simply don’t understand that their actions are having a long-term negative impact on their credit reports and credit scores.
With the lack of education in schools regarding financial literacy, consumers and business owners are often reactive to their credit reports and scores. It’s a very common case that no one looks at their credit reports until such time as they apply for finance. And at that point, it’s too late to fix what’s already been recorded on the credit report.
It doesn’t help that credit reporting has become more and more complex over the years. Since the introduction of comprehensive credit reporting, there are many data sets included in credit reports that consumers and business owners are not aware of.
On top of the complexity of credit reporting, there are also inconsistencies in credit reporting from credit providers, which means that a consumer can have different scores on different reports.
What exactly is included in my credit report?
Your personal credit report contains the following information:
– Your name, address and employment details
– Your enquiries for finance over the last 5 years, both consumer and commercial
– Your repayment history information for the last 24 months, for accounts including but not limited to your home loans, personal loans and credit cards.
– Any late repayments will be listed for 24 months and negatively impact on your credit score. Any financial hardship information will be noted for 12 months but does not impact your credit score.
– Defaults: A default occurs when you are seriously overdue on a loan. The default can be consumer or commercial and fall under different legislation. Once listed, a default remains on your credit report for 5 years. If you pay it, it will be marked as paid but not removed. A default can only be removed if found to be listed in error as per legislation. Paid or unpaid, a default will affect the lender options available to you whilst listed.
– Court Actions | Default Judgments: Court actions are listed for 5 years. If paid, they will be marked as paid but can only be removed via a reversal of the court action via the court that the debt was originally lodged at.
– Bankruptcy Information: A debt agreement or Part 9, and Part 10 (full bankruptcy) are listed on your report for 5 years from the start date, or 2 years after the discharge, whichever is later. They cannot be removed any earlier.
– Company information: If you have been or you are a director of any company, this will be noted on your personal credit report along with the status of the company.
– ASIC information: ASIC reports the status of any companies that you were or are a director of. This becomes part of your report history and cannot be removed.
Your company credit report contains the following information:
– Director’s personal information including date of birth and any adverse information
– Any administration or other ASIC notifications (these are listed as part of the company history and cannot be changed)
– Payment of invoices – on time or late as per industry averages
– Commercial enquiries
– Defaults: A default occurs when you are seriously overdue on a loan. The default can be consumer or commercial and fall under different legislation. Once listed, a default remains on your credit report for 5 years. If you pay it, it will be marked as paid but not removed. A default can only be removed if found to be listed in error as per legislation. Paid or unpaid, a default will affect the lender options available to you whilst listed.
– Court Actions | Default Judgements: Court actions are listed for 5 years. If paid, they will be marked as paid but can only be removed via a reversal of the court action via the court that the debt was originally lodged at.
How do I get a copy of my credit report?
There are 3 credit reporting agencies in Australia for personal credit reports, and 3 credit reporting agencies for company credit reports.
TOP TIP: Don’t just get your free credit score or report via your banking app or online. These are often just the Experian report, and you really need to start with your Equifax reports. A lot of times people call up at Credit Fix Solutions and they think they have a great report and score. This is often because they are only looking at their Experian report and score through an app or online.
For context, when comprehensive credit reporting was introduced, lenders knew that they had to report to Equifax and to Illion. However, Experian came into the Australian market very late and then credit providers didn’t update systems to report to Experian. So, for example, a lender will report a default to Equifax and most likely to Illion, but they don’t always report to Experian.
Question: You may think your credit report and score are great, but which report(s) are you looking at?
At Credit Fix Solutions, we highly recommend that you get, you read, and you understand your credit reports and scores. Start with Equifax. This will greatly assist you in the future when it comes to getting the best loan options. You will be proactive about your credit reports, rather than reactive which so many people are.
Consumer (individual reports) reporting agencies:
– Equifax is the longest standing credit reporting agency, which used to be called the CRA report and then the Veda report. You can get a free personal report from Equifax and pay around $100 for a company credit report. Equifax has a few different scoring systems, but most lenders for personal finance are looking at the newest Equifax One score. You also have a negative data only score and the older comprehensive score. These can be slightly different, as the negative score does not include your repayment history information, and the comprehensive score is the older scoring system.
– Illion have great reports and scores, and your personal report is free to obtain. Get your report, read through it carefully. We will explain how to dispute data on your reports later on in the article.
– Whilst credit reporting from credit providers is not perfect, it’s well worth checking out your Experian report.
Company reporting agencies:
– Equifax
– Illion
– Creditor Watch – for trades only, for example for suppliers to list an overdue account (defaults)
Top Tips for protecting your credit score
– Make sure you pay attention to your loans and dates of repayments
– Have you had an interest rate rise? Your payments may be different for one month to the next
– Do you have annual fees on any loans? Don’t just set and forget your repayments via direct debit. Set a monthly reminder to check your statement(s) to double check what the monthly minimum is
– Make sure that you keep your address and other contact information up to date with all lenders
– If you miss a payment, it will drop your score, and it will affect what loans you can get for 2 years
– Double check with your finance broker before you apply for any sort of loan
– Every time you shop online, you choose to pay in 4 instalments, or apply for credit cards, these are listed as an enquiry on your credit report. Understand that lender options such as buy now pay later and payday short term lending options are viewed as ‘higher risk’ lending. Just one or 2 of these types of enquiries can dramatically drop your score
– The strategy of saving and then buying will help you stay away from higher risk lending options
– Want a holiday and checking out personal loan options? Don’t do that. If you shop online, every application will incur an enquiry on your report. 3 enquiries in a month? You will lose a chuck of score, and this pattern will affect you for 5 years!
– Teach your family and friends what you have learnt. You may just save them from very expensive lending options because of too many enquiries or not checking their payment dates
How can I dispute any inaccuracies on my credit report?
At Credit Fix Solutions we have run over 8,000 client files for credit repair (as of April 2025). We can’t help everyone, and we only get paid if we get a successful result.
Be careful of predatory credit repair companies charging admin fees upfront. They may sound cheap, but you get what you pay for. Credit repair is never guaranteed, and you can run a dispute yourself with any credit providers that you feel have listed incorrect information.
How do I dispute late repayments?
If you have missed some repayments, and it’s not the lender’s fault, then as per legislation they will not be able to amend or change the late payments. Under the Privacy Act, it is the borrower’s responsibility to make sure that they pay on time. FULL STOP.
Lenders do not need to hold your hand, send you reminders. You are completely responsible to ensure that your accounts are paid on time.
If you feel that you were going through some tough times, and maybe your credit provider unfairly listed you as late, then locate their complaints email (or portal) and send them an email. Explain what you’ve been going through and they may agree to a goodwill compassionate amendment of the late payments.
How do I lodge a fraud complaint?
You may have been a victim of fraud. If it’s just enquiries that are fraudulent, then you can raise this complaint to Equifax via their corrections portal here: https://www.equifax.com.au/personal/corrections-portal
If there are open accounts and/or defaults on your credit report and you believe you did not take out these debts, you have to get in touch with each and every credit provider separately via their complaints email or portal.
The credit provider(s) in question will help guide you through the fraud process.
How do I remove a default?
Defaults can either be consumer or commercial. They come under different legislation.
Whilst consumers are protected by the Credit Reporting Code, which governs how consumer defaults are listed, commercial debts are unregulated and there is very little legislation to argue off a commercial default.
You can raise a credit repair corrections request through Equifax and the other credit reporting agencies. However, their cases are very limited, only looking into whether default warning notices were issued correctly.
If you have a complaint that relates to a dispute or any other reason, you must get in touch with the credit provider themselves.
How do I remove a court action?
We assist consumers and company directors to remove court actions via our law firm Credit Fix Lawyers. This process takes around 8 weeks to complete. In basic terms, orders have to be drafted and signed by all parties involved, then lodged and processed at the Court where the court action was entered. The stamped orders then need to be sent up to Equifax, Illion or other affected agencies to remove the court action.
Credit Fix Solutions & Education
Credit Fix Solutions’ CEO Victoria Coster is a passionate educator in the credit reporting and credit repair space. Having won awards in 2021 and 2024 for support service provider of the year, for their superior support for finance brokers in the finance broking industry, Coster is focused on improving education for consumers, business owners and finance professionals, has been involved in the credit reporting framework reform in 2024 and is currently looking into establishing a financial literacy program alongside HAS (Housing Affordability Solutions).
It has been a long-term goal of Coster’s to see students and their families educated on how to proactively protect their credit reports and scores, due to having thousands of conversations with consumers since 2014 on things that her and her team can’t help fix.
What if I have too many enquiries or late payments?
Most likely this will have dropped your score. And it could be at least one year if not up to five years dealing with a lower score.
Speak to an accredited finance broker and see what your lender options are. You may still be able to get finance, but it may be more expensive due to a low credit score.
Case Study: 18-year-old Sophie got in touch with Credit Fix Solutions earlier this year, as she had a score of around 300. Sophie turned 18, and the same day she applied for 3 personal loans and 2 credit cards. She had just got a little too excited about being able to buy a car and go on holiday. She was knocked back by all 5 lenders. This is now noted on her credit report and will be a key contributing factor for the next 5 years. It was a tough conversation to have with someone so young, and one that could have been prevented with the right education.
TOP TIP: Teach your kids about this!
For more information on credit reporting and credit repair, you can read more articles on our website here or check out the team’s case studies videos on their YouTube channel here.
CEO Coster is also in the process of forming a new credit repair standards association alongside 2 other credit repair firms who believe that the standards in credit repair are far too low. Many consumers and business owners have got in touch with Credit Fix Solutions after spending thousands of dollars on credit repair services with no results. Or they have been onboarded and spent money on something that cannot be fixed, not knowing that they have been given incorrect information from the credit repair firm when they have reached out for help. It’s Coster’s hope that the industry standards can be increased to protect consumers from predatory service providers.
*Please be careful paying money upfront for credit repair. It is never guaranteed.
Conclusion
In summary, managing your financial affairs is going to be one of the key factors that determines your ability to get the very best lending options. Stay on track with your loans, reach out to lenders if you need help, and remember to STOP before you SHOP!
For assistance with your credit report, you can reach out to the team at Credit Fix Solutions via email at sales@creditfixsolutions.com.au.
This article is for information purposes only and is not deemed financial advice. If you are currently experiencing financial difficulties, please contact your lenders, or call the National Debt Helpline on 1800 007 007. You can get budgeting tips from www.moneysmart.gov.au. Information current as of April 2025.
