Credit searches by Aviva Central Services

MsCabbage

This thread was very useful as it solved where 3 credit searches from Aviva Central Services Limited had come from over the last year. I am sending the email below and intend to make a lot of noise if they do not correctly report this as an insurance quote.

I personally think they are doing this on purpose as they get loads of information from a credit search and who knows what they will do with that information .


I have obtained acopy of my credit file and have found 3 credit searches from yourselves over the last year.

I am furious as I have not applied for credit from yourselves. From using google I have found the most likely culprit is an automatic insurance search from confused.com will do each year for me, which I might add I never authorised but I expect is hidden somewhere deep within their terms and conditions.

Either way you still should not record an insurance quote as credit search and as such I request you change the search to reflect the search you have done.

This is an official complaint and if you are not prepared to change this search to accurately reflect the search done it is my intention to take this further to Information Commissioner's Office as this must be affecting literally thousands of people.

pepperpot22_2

MsCabbage wrote: »

This thread was very useful as it solved where 3 credit searches from Aviva Central Services Limited had come from over the last year. I am sending the email below and intend to make a lot of noise if they do not correctly report this as an insurance quote.

I personally think they are doing this on purpose as they get loads of information from a credit search and who knows what they will do with that information .


I have obtained acopy of my credit file and have found 3 credit searches from yourselves over the last year.

I am furious as I have not applied for credit from yourselves. From using google I have found the most likely culprit is an automatic insurance search from confused.com will do each year for me, which I might add I never authorised but I expect is hidden somewhere deep within their terms and conditions.

Either way you still should not record an insurance quote as credit search and as such I request you change the search to reflect the search you have done.

This is an official complaint and if you are not prepared to change this search to accurately reflect the search done it is my intention to take this further to Information Commissioner's Office as this must be affecting literally thousands of people.

Excellent!! I contacted all the price comparison sites I used last year to ask them to remove my details as I was getting several Aviva footprints on my credit file. Aviva can get stuffed and I refuse to use comparison sites again unless they change this policy. I never seem to get a cheaper quote for insurance on them anyway.

MsCabbage

Ah pepperpot22 I thought this only applied to confused - do you know for sure if it applies to any other comparison site?

This leaving credit searches for insurance quotes is a scandal and it would be great if Martin Lewis and his machine took this cause up for us!

JimmyTheWig

Aviva_company_representative wrote: »

Hi Everyone,

Thank you for your comments regarding credit searches in insurance applications. Here is a link to information regarding credit searches on the Aviva.co.uk website:

http://www.aviva.co.uk/legal/car-home-and-travel-insurance.html

Aviva are not on comparison websites such as Confused.com, however there are companies underwritten by Aviva who are on such sites. This will be why you may see a search taking place under Aviva’s name even if you have not had any quotes directly from ourselves.

As you go through a direct quote with Aviva, we may undertake a credit search to ascertain credit worthiness and affordability of repayments. This search will leave a footprint visible to you and other lenders (who use the same credit reference agency)

Should you have any further questions regarding this subject, please contact our web support team at the below email address, as they are the team that can directly help you and resolve your query. Any emails that have been sent to David Barral at the email address posted in this thread have been, and will be, passed to our web support team so please do contact them directly at [EMAIL="UKDIsupport@aviva.co.uk"]UKDIsupport@aviva.co.uk[/EMAIL]

When emailing the web support team, to assist in resolving the queries as quickly as possible please include the following details:

Full Name
Address (please ensure this is the address you were living at when the search took place)
Date of search

For all other Aviva based queries please feel free to contact me directly at [EMAIL="david.hyam@aviva.co.uk"]david.hyam@aviva.co.uk[/EMAIL] and I will be happy to help.

Kind regards,

Dave Hyam

Dave,

I emailed the UKDI... address you quoted here on 23rd March about such searches on my credit report.
I received an automated reply the same day saying I should hear back within 48 hours.
I sent a second email on Tuesday morning saying that I hadn't heard back.
Again I received an automated reply.

It's now a further 48 hours and I have heard nothing.
Why?
What should I do now?

Thanks,
Jim

jfk123

MsCabbage wrote: »

Ah pepperpot22 I thought this only applied to confused - do you know for sure if it applies to any other comparison site?

I used gocompare (and no others) and also have a General Insurance (Credit) search from Aviva Central Services on my Callcredit file

Hazzinho

Not sure why anyone is bothered about soft searches on their credit file

pvt

Hazzinho wrote: »

Not sure why anyone is bothered about soft searches on their credit file

Quite so. And at least you know they've done it.

Many large financial organisations have access to your CRA information via a periodic dump that they get, and can then look at the information at their leisure, without leaving any footprint behind. That would worry me more....but still not a lot really.

MsCabbage

Hazzinho wrote: »

Not sure why anyone is bothered about soft searches on their credit file

These are not 'soft' searches as they are being recorded as CREDIT SEARCHES and because they have 'wrongly' in my opinion been recorded as credit searches they are then seen when you do a geniuine application for credit.

Now when you do your real credit application they may look at these other 'so called' credit searches and this may go against you so that you are not offered credit or a mortgage or if you are it might be at a less competitive rate.

AMG762

Last year i used a lot of price comparison websites and later found out i have around 5 searches on my credit file from various insurance companies.

Most say insurance quote, one says unrecorded enquiry.

Does anyone know if they will search my credit file every year from now on with renewal quotes?

Hazzinho

They will if you don't cancel the search on confused or whoever you used. It is performed annually like you agreed. Mine are all soft searches which is fine and causes no credit file issues.