Equifax Creditwatch Swindle?

Amberlina

Ok, so call me Ms Paranoia but has anyone else had trouble getting through to Equifax on the phone to cancel their creditwatch membership?

I've tried twice at times when they really shouldn't be that busy (late morning but before lunch and just now at 3:30 on a Friday!) and have had to wait 10 minutes each time before giving up because I have much better things to do.

This strikes me as an unfair way, if they are doing it deliberately of a) getting money out of me for the phone call (£4 so far I believe on my Orange service plan) and b) trying to keep my subscription by annoying me into hanging up.

So my cunning plan of checking my cerdit for free has in fact ended up costing me £4 and 20 minutes and no end in sight!

lisyloo

I now advise people to pay £2 for a statutory report and be free of this hassle.

But do you really have to phone them on an expensive mobile?

Amberlina

Yep, I don't have a landline and I work in the public sector so don't feel right using my work phone. I'm sure there must be many like me?

MrsVictorMildew_2

I cancelled by email without any problems

Mrs VM

lisyloo

Yep, I don't have a landline and I work in the public sector so don't feel right using my work phone. I'm sure there must be many like me?

It's a very commendable attitude but you do need to factor the cost of phone calls into many of your purchasing decisions these days as many companies use expensive numbers e.g. insurance companies.
This can easily outweigh the cost of cheap or free products.

I have a slightly different problem.
Using my desk phone is difficult because I work in a very quiet office and don't want to disturb people (we do international work so cost of calls is not an issue).
I generally tend to find other ways of communicating (like email) and only use my mobile (or go to a private conference room) only when I can't do it by email.

dawnie1972

I couldn't even get a creditwatch from them!! My address is one of those funny ones that's not listed when you type in the postcode on a postcode search - cos it doesn't come up on the Royalmail search they won't accept it and won't set me up for creditwatch so have had to opt for the £2 job instead!

thriftymomma

When I subscribed to this service it only took a quick 30 second call to cancel it. People must be goign credit watch crazy if it is now so busy.
Friday is never a good day to call though as people are trying to get in before the weekend. And same with a monday morning, liable to be busier then.

richessex

On a positive note

i today cancelled my Credit Expert with Experian good as gold

I have several times cancelled it now and then signed up a few months later just to check my file everytime i expected the hard sell to stay but no each time they happily cancelled it and were more than helpful with questions i asked

i know its not much comfort to the OP but credit where credits due (excuse the pun)

esmerelda98

I tried my hardest to find a way to cancel the free Equifax trial online, but I could only find a phone number, one of these (more) expensive numbers, and yes, they certainly weren't in a hurry to answer. However, before I had a chance to build up much of a bill I remembered saynoto0870.com. I needed to leave home quickly, I think that's what prompted me to remember. It's easy to become cynical when you then call an 0800 number and they pick up immediately, but of course it could well just have been luck.

Elspeth

Hi

I've just got through to Equifax to do two things:
1) Tell them there's an error on my account (someone I flat-shared with is incorrectly listed as an associate)
2) Cancel the subscription I had a free trial to CreditWatch until the end of this week.

I'd tried unsuccessfully to do (1) online, but kept getting told I needed to set up an account (when I was already logged into one).

It took 28 minutes for my call to be answered after I selected the options for 'I have already got a report that I'd like to talk about'.

When I got through, I was told I should do the financial associate thing online (would have if I could have). The girl then 'created the query' and told me it would be probably two weeks before I received a response.

I said I'd have to cancel my free subscription before then. But apparently, without the subscription being active they 'don't have a credit report to check'. And no, I can't put my query in writing with a print out from the report as 'they won't have a credit report to check'.

I asked about if I put in a statutory request to see my file and then wrote to make the query: 'Yes, you can do that'.

So I'd say, unless you're going to be quick off the mark finding and following up any errors the month's free subscription isn't that useful, especially if they regularly run a backlog of a couple of weeks.

Andy_Ches

Elspeth wrote: »

Hi

I've just got through to Equifax to do two things:
1) Tell them there's an error on my account (someone I flat-shared with is incorrectly listed as an associate)
2) Cancel the subscription I had a free trial to CreditWatch until the end of this week.

I'd tried unsuccessfully to do (1) online, but kept getting told I needed to set up an account (when I was already logged into one).

It took 28 minutes for my call to be answered after I selected the options for 'I have already got a report that I'd like to talk about'.

When I got through, I was told I should do the financial associate thing online (would have if I could have). The girl then 'created the query' and told me it would be probably two weeks before I received a response.

I said I'd have to cancel my free subscription before then. But apparently, without the subscription being active they 'don't have a credit report to check'. And no, I can't put my query in writing with a print out from the report as 'they won't have a credit report to check'.

I asked about if I put in a statutory request to see my file and then wrote to make the query: 'Yes, you can do that'.

So I'd say, unless you're going to be quick off the mark finding and following up any errors the month's free subscription isn't that useful, especially if they regularly run a backlog of a couple of weeks.

I do find Equifax unhelpful at times and it took me 1 hour 40 minutes to get through to cancel my subscription! :eek: