Issue: After I upgraded to Extra on the 9th of October and tried to set up the credit insights, it seems like the association between my account and the correct credit file/report was broken.
Until then, my mortgage tracker was working perfectly since its release, but after I attempted to set up the credit insights, it says it can’t find my mortgage anymore. Furthermore, the credit insights are incorrect and seem to be connected to the wrong name/person, as they are not the same as what I can see on my own in all 3 agencies. Nothing has changed on my side or the agencies, this is a pure problem from Monzo’s side.
Can it be that an engineering team has made changes to the fields they send to the agencies that could affect people with multiple long last names (my case)?
I did a bit more research and it seems that when back in October I created a new bank account with First Direct, they created a new credit file for me with TransUnion, probably with a truncated last name.
And for some reason Monzo connects to this wrong file with the truncated last name, which only has this first direct account, rather than the correct one, with all my history.
Maybe an engineer from the relevant team can help me understand what fields the matching happens on? If your algo only matches the address and the first name and then it picks the first on the list, then that would explain the issue here.
Sounds to me like the issue is with Transunion. You shouldn’t have multiple credit files, they need to be merged together. Monzo shouldn’t be trying to work out which credit file to choose from, as there should only be one.
Well, having 2 files is just an assumption, I am not certain of it. But even if that would be the case, the second, newer file would have the wrong name (a truncated last name), so there is still a Monzo issue here on why it picks the wrong file.
If they have a fuzzy matching algorithm and multiple high probability options exist, they should give the user the option to pick the correct one, or ask for more details to distinguish between the options.
So your assumption is that the credit file is duplicated, but you have no proof that this is the source of the issue. Have you tried checking with Transunion yourself?
Maybe you should re-post in the mortgage topic itself and tag in one of the team managing it (they do engage on there):
Yeah, that’s correct, but unfortunately the credit reporting system is completely obscure, so no matter how much I try, it’s impossible to know the source of the issue. I am also in discussions with TransUnion, but they are not helpful at all, and I am going in circles with unhelpful agents and generic help guides. Honestly, these companies should pay fines for how they handle our data and how difficult they make it to correct THEIR mistakes.
I could talk to someone from Mortgages, but this issue is more of a bug in the data association with the credit agencies, rather than a specific issue with Mortgages.
Well, that would be the happy code path. But when duplication and other issues arise, like in my case, a complementary matching system should exist. That’s why, in my opinion, this is a bug. It’s an edge case that hasn’t been taken into account, and it’s causing issues for one or more users.
I disagree. The data error is not Monzo’s, but the way Monzo’s code is handling data errors and duplications is entirely the responsibility of the engineering team building the APIs that make the connections and associations. In my opinion, it’s a bug because this is about the behaviour of the product and how it manages edge cases.
Edit: Just to clarify, I am also trying to solve the issue at source both with First Direct and TransUnion.
have you tried waving GDPR at TransUnion? A Subject Access Request should reveal whether or not you’ve got more than one credit file, and then you can use your right to correction to get them to correct it. And if they don’t, then you can head over to the ICO. (In theory they can fine them, but I think that tends to be more for repeat offenders. They won’t know about it unless you complain though…)