Royal Bank Of Scotland and Experian story

scot455

I am 72, retired, and own my own house, have no debt to speak of, and all my bank accounts are in credit.

Here is what happened on Saturday last

My wife and I had seen my daughters mobile phone, which was easier for us to use than the old ones we had.
I therefore decided to go to Orange in Ayr and make two 2-year contracts for Nokia 710 mobile at £15.50 per month.
98% thro' the process, the lady serving me said
'your credit has been rejected by Experian, you need to find out why and have it corrected before we can proceed'.

Since I have never heard of Experian, I need to get on the internet and find out

2 1/2 hours later, £40.00 in phone calls £4.00 in an internet cafe I have access to a free 30-day credit report from Experian,
I log in and get 'you are still being investigated by experian, it will take up to 2 working days before you can get access to your report'.

I now have
a)no money on either of my mobile phones (wife's and mine)
b)nothing to eat or drink for a long time -- I had planned only to be an hour or so in Ayr.
c)I phone Experian and get a reasonably helpful
person who looks at my files and saya somethiong was wrong about a loan I had 7 years ago, which is to be paid off this next month August -- I have paid this by direct debit every month from RBS and never missed a month.
d)I go back to Orange and, while the staff are completing my paperwork for me to sign go and have lunch, come back to Orange (thinking that the problem would be solved) to be told it wasn't, but they would try to wait and mail the phones to me if the situation cleared by Tuesday. Very helpful staff, at Orange, by the way.

Monday I phone RBS -- my rational:-
1)RBS employs Experian to report on my credit to them, therefore RBS must know what the problem is -- told by RBS 'adress your problem to Experian
2)Experian say still under investigation may take up to two weeks
3)Escalate up Experian (3 levels) manager says will call back within hour -- doesn't
4)E-mail from Experian saying are sending a PIN for my free account (monday) -- doesn't arrive Tuesday

Please advise me how to proceed from here -- I am
determined
a) to get recompense for the waste of 3 days of my life
b) to disconnect myself eventually and finally from
i)Experian
ii)RBS

I am 72, intelligent (IQ 135 still), very angry and frustrated by these inept nincompoops:T:mad:

Tixy

Its not unsual to take a few days to get your credit file, especially the first time. Until you have it you cannot know if there is anything incorrect on there - it certainly wouldn't be updated instantly so you could go back to the orange shop the same day and get a different result (obviously you didn't realise that but so you know for another time).

Once you have your credit file then you can investigate the problem, until then its hard to say if any particular organisation is to blame for the situation you found yourself in.

There is no way you can stop experian from holding your data. They are entitled to and will continue to do so. If you never apply for credit with anyone then that data would never be seen but it would still be there.
If the data is incorrect you should hopefully be able to get it corrected - but if an error has been reported by a lender then this can take time - weeks, sometimes months.

DVardysShadow

Tixy wrote: »

...
There is no way you can stop experian from holding your data. They are entitled to and will continue to do so. If you never apply for credit with anyone then that data would never be seen but it would still be there.
If the data is incorrect you should hopefully be able to get it corrected - but if an error has been reported by a lender then this can take time - weeks, sometimes months.

Experian are only entitled by virtue of contracts between the Data Subject [ie the OP] and whoever he does business with. Experian have no absolute right to keep data.

scot455

Thank you for you very informative post

I make these points, however

1) If nobody pays Experian to do this work, and nobody uses it, Experian will, like the pterodactyl,
vanish from our ken.
2) If, as I suspect, the RBS is near bankrupt, and needs another handout from the taxpayer, they should stop being so arrogant and remember that they exist only because the taxpayer of this country chooses them to do so via our elected politicos
3)I don't need credit, could buy the mobile phones cash, and still eat -- not interested in my credit rating - only my grandchildren,children wife and
complaining ( I enjoy all of those !!!)

Still -- thank you for educating me and I hope you are still on speaking terms

Ivan

scot455

Incidentally Tixy,
I got my credit file from another source and printed it this morning
I opened another bank account face to face across a desk in a bank 50 miles away from where I live yesterday.
I phoned the bank today and got the same person to answer some small administrative details that were needed
When I phoned RBS yesterday, the call was put through automatically to Edinburgh (from Girvan) to someone
a)I didn't know
b)Could care less about me as a customer
c)Could only tell me how things couldn't work not how they could

Lets get back to personal banking Eh?????????

scot455

Breaking news
The RBS have just sold their airline company????? for
7.3 billion
They own (or have on order) 329 aeroplanes

They have just said thay have made a small trading profit this year, against the 1 billion they lost last year.

questions

1] how much of the 7.3 was payed as bonuses?
2)how much of the profit was payed back to the UK taxpayer?
3)Where's my share (as an RBS customer of 11 years?