Richard McGrath received a credit score alert last week, informing him that his credit score had unexpectedly dropped. He later discovered that an unpaid ticket from 2005 had resurfaced, causing his credit score to plummet. McGrath expressed frustration that the city had not contacted him about the ticket before it affected his credit score.
Richard McGrath says he got a "rude awakening" last Friday when he received an alert from his credit bureau that his credit score had unexpectedly taken a nosedive. The 57-year-old teacher soon learned from the City of Ottawa that, back in 2005, before his university-age daughter was even born, he'd been physically handed a $127 ticket on Elgin Street — and it remained unpaid to this day, he said.
But he's upset "an insanely old ticket" he has no memory of has resurfaced 19 years later, sending his credit score plummeting more than 100 points just as he was planning home renovations. "They didn't reach out in any way to talk about it before," he said of the city. Had they done so, "I would have been happy to pay the ticket.
Credit Score Unpaid Ticket Credit Bureau Nosedive Ottawa