why do we have to pay to see our credit scores?

Tixy

I actually agree that £2 is pretty good value. Any other place you want to look at what info they hold about you and its £10 for a subject access request.

spaceboy

Tixy wrote: »

I actually agree that £2 is pretty good value. Any other place you want to look at what info they hold about you and its £10 for a subject access request.

My point is there should by law be no charge, imo.

exel1966

spaceboy wrote: »

Because why should they be able to hold data on you that may not be correct, and which could affect your ability to get credit?

I think the law should be changed on this.

CRA's hold information supplied by 3rd party companies. They are not responsible for the information supplied, how can they possibly verify it ? They have to have faith that the info provided is accurate.
Obviously human error is possible and that should be rectified immediately once its discovered and verified.
CRA's DO NOT directly affect the consumers access to credit.

spaceboy

exel1966 wrote: »

CRA's hold information supplied by 3rd party companies. They are not responsible for the information supplied, how can they possibly verify it ? They have to have faith that the info provided is accurate.
Obviously human error is possible and that should be rectified immediately once its discovered and verified.
CRA's DO NOT directly affect the consumers access to credit.

They can affect the consumers access to credit. The information they supply can directly affect a consumers access to credit. So you are wrong.

By making it possible for consumers to access the information freely it would enable individuals to spot error far more easily.

exel1966

spaceboy wrote: »

They can affect the consumers access to credit. The information they supply can directly affect a consumers access to credit. So you are wrong.

By making it possible for consumers to access the information freely it would enable individuals to spot error far more easily.

The originator of the information will be responsible, not the CRA. Many consumers would argue that some information held is not accurate (in their eyes) when it is perfectly accurate.

If you have such strong opinions that this information should be available FOC then do something about it. Canvass the relevant authorities, the Government through your MP, Martin Lewis or start your own campaign. I'm sure you'll get many in agreement, but just as many who aren't !

mo786uk

Because the existent of CRA makes it much easier for people to get credit - they are doing you a favour if you want credit.

Farmerbob

spaceboy wrote: »

They can affect the consumers access to credit. The information they supply can directly affect a consumers access to credit. So you are wrong.

By making it possible for consumers to access the information freely it would enable individuals to spot error far more easily.

RBOS put a missed payment on my mortgage in error, i found this out after getting my report. I then phoned RBOS and politely got them to fix my credit report. I would have blamed RBOS for affecting my access to credit as they made the error.

Tixy

Credit reference agencies are a good thing. They make it possible for us to get credit and help us to prevent other people taking out fraudulent applications in our names. They run a service and are regulated. They employ people, they have massive IT systems etc and this all costs them a lot of money.
Of course the lenders who use them pay the majority of these costs but £2 every few months imo seems like a fair price to pay. (£14.99 would be terrible value though).

NeverEnough

I don't agree that CRAs "are a good thing". Credit was available long before the advent of CRAs, so the notion that the ability to obtain credit should rest entirely on the dubious information held by profit-making companies who profiteer off holding our personal data, is just wrong. In the past I tried to have factually completely incorrect info held by the CRAs corrected to no avail - one of the issues involved no less than around 30 searches, all made in a very short space of time, by the same lender, with whom I never had any connection at all and certainly never authorised. After months of trying to have the info corrected, the lender consistently refused to amend their rubbish stating it was accurate. Yes of course, I made some 30 applications to the same lender, who I'd not even heard of, all within the space of an hour or so, when I hadn't applied for any credit from anyone at all. They vanished off the CRA report after 6-12 months so became irrelevant in the big scheme of things. But the "Linked Associations" from that time remain - 22 "links" all with the same date and the same lender. It was around 2006, so maybe they'll vanish sometime, too.

Multiple searches all on the same date and same time have happened since then too, from bona fide lenders to whom I made a single application but they entered up to 6 or 7 searches - some were removed when challenged, others not.

The CRAs it seems have the best of all worlds - they milk us for cash to access our own data and they charge companies a fat rate to perform "searches" which "prove" whether I'm creditworthy or not, all without knowing my salary etc. Plus they "are not responsible for the accuracy of any info" they hold. Nice little earner with no responsibility attached and no effort to resolve issues- if millions of people pay £2 a day for a statutory report, that represents a massive income for little effort.

CRAs are disgusting. They are not "value for money" at all.

Tixy

Well I like that potential lenders can look at my credit file and see I'm low risk and give me credit products (and interest rates) based on that info.

I'm also happy that if someone with a bad history potential lenders look at that and can thereby make an appropriate risk assessment. This helps keep the interest rates that I am charged down.

I personally have never had any difficulties getting something on my credit file corrected.

(comments based on the statutory credit report only - I would never pay for a score/rating etc)