Lowell Portfolio I Ltd · DRN-5568688

The complaint Miss H complains that Lowell Portfolio I Ltd (Lowell) are reporting incorrect information on her credit file. What happened Miss H had a catalogue account with a firm I’ll call C for the purposes of this decision. Miss H fell into financial difficulties and in March 2024 C terminated her account and recorded it as defaulted. Following this in May 2024 C sold the account to Lowell. Lowell took over the reporting of the default to Miss H’s credit file. Miss H settled the remaining balance on the account in August 2024 – so there is no longer any outstanding money owed on it. Miss H says the default wasn’t applied correctly by C in the first instance and so the reporting of it was wrong by C and then in turn by Lowell when they took over the account. She complained to Lowell and asked that the default be removed. Lowell partially upheld Miss H’s complaint but didn’t remove the default, they referred her concerns about the validity of the default back to C. Miss H contacted Lowell again when she didn’t get a response from C, so Lowell passed her concerns on a second time and C responded to Miss H. In the meantime, Miss H also contacted some of the credit reference agencies (CRA) to dispute the default being reported on her credit file. The CRAs sent Miss H updates saying Lowell were looking into matters, but those updates were sent after Lowell had finalised Miss H’s complaint and forwarded it to C. She has said she found this misleading. Lowell upheld this complaint point and offered Miss H £50. Miss H also received an email from Lowell which included the details of a third party. Lowell apologised for this and assured Miss H it had been a manual error and that her own details had remained safe and had not been compromised. Miss H wasn’t satisfied with how Lowell had dealt with matters, so she referred her complaint to this service. While the complaint was with our service Lowell made a pro-active offer to settle it. They offered £100 (separate to the £50 already offered), they said while they were confident they had sent the complaint to C when they said they had, because the information was shared through a portal, they couldn’t go back and check the detail of what was included, and so they made the offer just in case they had been in anyway responsible for the delay in the complaint with C being set up. Our investigator said that Lowell’s offer was fair, in summary they said: • Lowell could have raised the dispute with C earlier.

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• Lowell weren’t responsible for the initial default decision, this was C and so only they could answer a complaint about its validity. • Lowell were required to take over the reporting of the account to the CRAs and so were entitled to continue reporting the default • Once Miss H settled the account Lowell changed the status of the account to satisfied, but that the default would remain on Miss H’s credit file for six years from the date it was entered. • They couldn’t comment on the communications Miss H had received from the CRAs as they had been received after Lowell had issued their final response letter and so couldn’t be included in this complaint. Miss H didn’t agree with the investigator’s findings and so the matter has been passed to me to decide. What I’ve decided – and why I’ve considered all the available evidence and arguments to decide what’s fair and reasonable in the circumstances of this complaint. I realise that I’ve summarised this complaint in less detail than the parties and I’ve done so using my own words. I’ve concentrated on what I consider to be the key issues. The rules that govern this service allow me to do so. This isn’t intended as a discourtesy to either party, but merely to reflect my informal role in deciding what a fair and reasonable outcome is. This also means I don’t think it’s necessary to get an answer, or provide my own answer, to every question raised unless it’s relevant to the crux of the complaint. Miss H’s main argument here is that the default shouldn’t be appearing on her credit report as she believes it wasn’t applied correctly by C in the first place. Miss H has raised a separate complaint about that with our service and an Ombudsman reached a decision on this in September 2024, saying that the default was applied fairly and in line with ICO guidance. So, my role here is not to determine if the default was applied fairly as this has already been done, but to decide if Lowell have acted fairly in continuing to report it when they bought the account. And I think they have, I’ll explain. When a debt purchaser in this case Lowell buys an account from another party, they become responsible for the reporting of that account to the CRAs. They have a duty to report a true and accurate reflection of the account as it is. They are entitled to rely on the information passed to them by the seller in the first instance. When and if there is any dispute about the reporting, we would expect them to look into this. In this case I can see that Miss H disputed the validity of the default saying she hadn’t been provided the correct notice from C. At this stage Lowell requested the default notice from C, which I think is a reasonable first step to have taken. When Miss H continued to dispute this Lowell passed the dispute back to C, through a portal, for them to investigate. Miss H got in touch again to say she hadn’t heard back from C and so Lowell raised the complaint to C again but this time via email. C acted upon the complaint at this point, they didn’t uphold it and maintained the default was applied correctly. And I can see that it is now showing as settled since Miss H has cleared the outstanding balance Based on this, I can’t see how Lowell have done anything wrong in continuing to report the default on Miss H’s credit file as it is true and accurate information. So, I won’t be asking them to remove the default from Miss H’s credit file.

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Lowell offered Miss H £100, in case the delays in C responding to her complaint were caused by the first submission through the portal. I think that is fair in the circumstances. I understand Miss H found it confusing when the responses from the CRAs said Lowell were looking into things. Lowell offered £50 for any confusion this may have caused, I think this was generous and possibly further than I would have gone. I say this because Miss H was clearly worried about this and so raised the dispute with various different businesses to try and get her resolution as soon as possible and this inevitably caused some crossover and meant that there was some conflicting information. So, I think an apology and an explanation would have been sufficient here. I appreciate our investigator has said we can’t comment on any response Miss H received from the CRAs after Lowell issued their final responses. And that is true, but I think it is worth pointing out here that Lowell wouldn’t be responsible for the timings of those communications or what is included in them as they didn’t send them to Miss H. So, while Miss H could, as the investigator said, raise a new complaint, she should know she may not get the answer she is seeking from Lowell. Finally turning to the email Miss H received, which contained third-party information. Lowell have accepted this shouldn’t have happened and apologised, they have confirmed this was human error and that Miss H’s data wasn’t compromised. As we know human errors do occur, so I’m satisfied this is a suitable explanation. I have seen nothing to suggest that Miss H’s data was compromised and as the third-party was the victim of the breach here, not Miss H, I won’t be asking Lowell to do any more. I understand Miss H’s strength of feeling about this issue and know she will be disappointed with this outcome. But my decision ends what we – in trying to resolve her dispute with Lowell– can do for her. Putting things right If they haven’t already, on acceptance of this decision Lowell should now arrange to pay Miss H: • £50 offered in their final response letter for misleading information • £100 pro-actively offered to Miss H through this service for any potential delays caused in passing the complaint to C My final decision For the reasons set out above, I currently uphold this complaint, and I require Lowell Portfolio I LTD to carry out the actions as set out under the ‘Putting things right’ section of this decision. Under the rules of the Financial Ombudsman Service, I’m required to ask Miss H to accept or reject my decision before 25 July 2025. Amber Mortimer Ombudsman

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