Renewing Capital One Identity Alert

firsttimestudent

Hi,

I have a Capital One Classic Card, which I opened back in Nov 2010 (to benefit from the then 1% cashback offer).

As part of the Classic bundle then, they offer the Equifax Identity Alert service, with 2 free credit reports per year.

I notice I still receive alerts from Equifax (for any credit report changes), but I did not seem to have any more credit report entitlements. I thought it should be 2 per membership year right?

For those who do have the Identity Alert service, did your Credit Report entitlement get renewed automatically? If not, what did you do?

Thanks!

jazza77

I've never had to do anything to renew, so assume it is automatic. From memory when logged in to the Equifax site it shows when a free report is available. I've never kept a particular note of when I have used the free reports, although I am aware that it has recently shown a free report as being available to me after many months of not doing so.

molerat

I found it does take a while for the credit report allowance to renew, when does Equifax state your subscription started from ?

terafarma

The two free Capital one/Equifax reports per year is no longer so. Although the identity alerts are still free, you do now get charged after the first anniversary of when you first access your two free reports as, unlike when you could previously access your two free reports say between1st of January and 31st December of the same year, indefinitely, for as long as you have a Capital One credit card . I spent almost an hour on the phone with an Equifax customer services rep after being charged £5.99 for accessing what I believed was my free credit report entitlement on the 6th of this month i.e.06/01/2012. I have raised a dispute with a view to getting the charge refunded and will be cancelling my Capital One credit card soon as it no longer serve the purpose of the free annual credit reports with Equifax anymore.

http://www.equifax.co.uk/capitalone/index.html

* "The year will run from the date you register for this service. Equifax Credit Reports(tm) can be viewed securely online, are printable and come with easy to understand notes. This service may be withdrawn or amended at any time. You'll be informed of any changes".

chexum

Originally, there was nothing to be done, after you used up your 2 free credit reports, you just needed to wait for the anniversary of your registration. They changed the criteria though, and when they last made a few changes to the World Mastercard (removing the annual fee), around last June or July, they made the free reports exclusive to the World Mastercard owners.

No free reports since then, nor at the anniversary, nor in January... Now the prices don't make sense, they want to ask £5.99 for something that you can buy for £2. I'm worse off by £4 - but I don't think I it's worth to offset that by spending time on a call...

The Identity alert is still somewhat useful, it sends messages about all the changes that you know are about to happen anyway, so you don't need to check the actual credit report to have an idea where you are. Occasionally it's quite broken though - it can send messages for an alert that is not visible yet, or actually happened last month. Or, you'll see three alerts for the same thing (only one email though) - that your electoral registration is now extended by one year.

James129

I have cap1 progress MasterCard and after the 1st year, I was given 2 free equifax reports on 17th August. So if policy has changed it must have come into effect after 17th August.

Ps I havn't recieved any letter from cap1 either to suggest that no free equifax reports will be available.

ChopperST

As a slight aside from this. Careful if you ever login to your account via the link sent to you in an alert email from them. The link takes you to the equifax page and not the equifax/capital one page. If you view your report from there you are automatically charged £5.99. I raised a dispute with them and got it refunded. They said its a "quirk" in the system, my thinking is its done on purpose to get you to login through the wrong link in the hope you don't notice the £5.99 on your credit card bill...

callum9999

ChopperST wrote: »

As a slight aside from this. Careful if you ever login to your account via the link sent to you in an alert email from them. The link takes you to the equifax page and not the equifax/capital one page. If you view your report from there you are automatically charged £5.99. I raised a dispute with them and got it refunded. They said its a "quirk" in the system, my thinking is its done on purpose to get you to login through the wrong link in the hope you don't notice the £5.99 on your credit card bill...

I always login from the Equifax homepage and never been charged £5.99.

Surely the Capital One system is just linked to your user name so you'd get it from however you log in?

Eydon

I've had a Cap One Mastercard for a fair few years now, and I got my latest credit report two days ago - for free. And despite what ChopperST says above, I followed the link in their Alert email (always do) and while I was there looking at the alerts I thought I'd get my report.

nick74

I discovered recently that I no longer seem to be getting access to free credit reports with this service. After searching on here there are quite a few threads saying the free reports have now been withdrawn, but I've spoken to people at Capital One and Equifax today who were both adamant that I'm still eligible for the 2 free reports as an existing customer.

Despite that there is no option for this when I log into the Equifax site and it charged me £5.99 for a report even though Capital One assured me it wouldn't! The lady I spoke to at Equifax customer services seemed very puzzled by this and asked why I didn't just select the free report. I explained there was no option for a free report on the site and she almost seemed to disbelieve me and rather patronisingly said that next time I wanted to order a free report to phone them first and someone would tell me what to click on! I've been using this for over 4 years and never had this issue before. At least she agreed to refund my £5.99.

What on earth is going on? Have they withdrawn the two free reports without telling any of their staff or customers?!

nick74

I've subsequently received the following message from Equifax which clarifies the situation and may be helpful to other users;

Thank you for getting in touch.

Recently we've had some technical issues affecting Equifax Capital One customers. As you know, being a Capital One customer entitles you to two free Equifax Credit Reports per year. Sometimes, you might find that our online system attempts to charge you when you try to order a new report. If you come across this issue and you would like to order your free Capital One Credit Report, just give us a call on our free phone number, specifically for Capital One users - 0800 066 5825. Then we'll process the report for you over the phone.