Credit agencies a big scam (please read so you know the truth before its to late)

Dobbi_2

Sorry for this being quite long as my first post, but its very important that something is done to change how credit agencies work, as people are losing money/having there identity stolen and not realising it.

Please please read on, you will be shocked if you didn't know already.

I am a member of creditexpert and pay the monthly payment of £10 to be able to access my credit file. I noticed yesterday I had an unauthorised account opened with a shopdirect (tracked it down to being amlittlewoods catalogue mail order) now I had never opened this account and I was amazed that the account was active with a £750 credit limit yet there had bene no credit search done first.

After speaking to credit expert at length and then to little woods fraud department (they don't believe in prevention, they only trace ip addresses once a crime has been committed rather than tracing them before they have ordered stuff) I explained to the fraud team at littlewoods I haven't had a credit check done, yet they managed to open an account, I was told this is impossible, so I said I would get creditexpert (experian) to call and confirm this.

I rang creditexpert back, and after speaking to someone else, I find out this,
When a search is done its done through 3 different agencies (yes I knew this) but what I didn't know, was the agency searched will then not make the other 2 credit agencies aware of this. So by me paying creditexpert every month for what they advertise as my credit file is a lie.

Unless I subscribe to all 3 agencies I won't ever have access to my credit file, and what's worse is people who use these sites aren't told this, so if someone fraudulently opened an account with a company that uses equifax, having access to experian you will never know that you have had your identity stolen or even had issues in the past. It will only ever come to light when you try and get credit and a company uses more than 1 agency and one of those is experian (the one you have subscribed to)

After speaking to 3 different people at work who use these credit agency sites, none of them were aware of this fact, or to actually know that your whole credit file is in fact a myth, unless you pay nearly all 3 agencies every month, which is nearly £45 per month.

Neither experian or equifax state this on their websites and advertise as you can access your credit file, which you can't unless doing what I stated above.

I am also annoyed I haven't seen anything that money expert have covered this, or made a big deal about it so the laws/rules are changed.

To either 1 of these options.

A, when a company offers credit, they have to inform all 3 agencies when searching your credit file or giving you the credit you want.

B, once a change is made on either of the 3 credit companies files, then they have to automatically notify the other 2, so when viewing your information with say experian, you have the full facts.

This country spends billions on fraud every year, yet the 2 options I have listed above would reduce problems before they happen, yet no one has seen this or even done anything about it.

3 different Independant companies (a business) who only care about getting money from both consumer and supplier yet only react that fraud has happened after the person detects it themself.

There will be people reading this, not knowing they have had there identity stolen and a bad credit rating as the site they pay for to a different agency will show it as excellent.

THIS NEEDS TO BE ADDRESSED

~Beanie~

Its never going to happen.

You would not have to pay nearly £45 per month either, if you were that bothered about keeping tabs on your credit file, you could send off for the £2 paper copies, costing £6.

There would be no point even having 3 different CRA's if every lender had to check/report to all 3, all reports would be the same so there might as well only be one CRA.

As they are all in it to make money, as I said earlier, this is never going to happen.

Anyway, I knew that you need to check all 3 agencies to get a full picture and I'm sure other people know as well.

Dobbi_2

Sending off for paper copies will take anything upto 2 weeks to get, by that time fraud can already of been committed, checking online is instant and the companies also notify you automatically of any change to your credit file.

Something you can't have unless with all 3 agencies online services.
There might be people who are aware you need to be with all 3, until a few hours a go I wasn't, and the people I spoke to work about it, most definitely were not.

So I am willing to bet that more dont know than those who do.

The sites are misleading and don't explain it's just the information they hold and does not cover all information relating to you, as that is also held by 2 other companies.

MamaMoo_2

It's not a scam at all. If you have just made the assumption that there's only one agency that holds this information, then that's nobody's fault but your own.
There are 3 agencies, Equifax, Experian and CallCredit. You can obtain a free CallCredit report every month by using Noddle.
If you want to see data from all 3 agencies in one place, try CheckMyFile, a lot cheaper than £45 per month too.
Also, there *is* an article on MSE about credit scoring, which does state

If possible, check all three agencies, as there's no harm. While doing a check is recorded on your file, it does NOT add a 'credit search' that a lender can see, so has no impact.

Not all providers use the same agencies. You may have some information on one, but not another. So do as many as you can, or if you've been rejected, try to find out the agency the provider uses and check that.

If time is short and you can only use one, then choose Experian or Equifax as they're the biggest. If you're worried about hassle, then it's best to simply use the official credit checking system. It's a good idea to do a check-up roughly every year to 18 months, and always do one in good time before making any important applications.

Thomas_Hardy

I was also aware that there was more than one credit agency.

I don't see the need to subscribe to one either, if fraud occurs you'll find out soon enough anyway, and it is very unlikely you will end up liable for something you had no knowledge of (unless you were negligent in some way).

The only "scam" here (that's not a scam at all, just sharp practice) is that the agencies play on peoples fear of identity theft. The reality is that it is still pretty rare.

Dobbi_2

MamaMoo wrote: »

It's not a scam at all. If you have just made the assumption that there's only one agency that holds this information, then that's nobody's fault but your own.
There are 3 agencies, Equifax, Experian and CallCredit. You can obtain a free CallCredit report every month by using Noddle.
If you want to see data from all 3 agencies in one place, try CheckMyFile, a lot cheaper than £45 per month too.
Also, there *is* an article on MSE about credit scoring, which does state

I knew about 3 different agencies as I stated in my original post, what I and others won't be aware of is that information is not shared between the 3 of them.

Which to me is a scam, as I said, having to actually be signed up to all 3 to actually know what's going on.

And it's about being alerted to a change in your credit file when it happens, unless you are signed up to all 3 then you won't know until after it happens.

Trying to prevent damage to your credit file is far far easier than trying to repair it after fraud has been committed (research how easy it is and how long it takes)

In this case I spotted an attempted fraud on my account and fortunately littlewoods had notified experian of a change, if they hadn't, and just told equifax, I would not know and nor would equifax know that it was someone else who had committed fraud.

That is the problem here, prevention is key, yet the easiest ways seem to be using them to alert you of problems which costs to much using all 3!

They should notify each when changes are made to your file even if its held with a different agency.

Thomas_Hardy

Dobbi wrote: »

They should notify each when changes are made to your file even if its held with a different agency.

Why should they? The credit agencies primarily work for the businesses that use them to check your credit worthiness, not for you.

MamaMoo_2

Dobbi wrote: »

I knew about 3 different agencies as I stated in my original post, what I and others won't be aware of is that information is not shared between the 3 of them.

Which to me is a scam, as I said, having to actually be signed up to all 3 to actually know what's going on.

And it's about being alerted to a change in your credit file when it happens, unless you are signed up to all 3 then you won't know until after it happens.

Trying to prevent damage to your credit file is far far easier than trying to repair it after fraud has been committed (research how easy it is and how long it takes)

In this case I spotted an attempted fraud on my account and fortunately littlewoods had notified experian of a change, if they hadn't, and just told equifax, I would not know and nor would equifax know that it was someone else who had committed fraud.

That is the problem here, prevention is key, yet the easiest ways seem to be using them to alert you of problems which costs to much using all 3!

They should notify each when changes are made to your file even if its held with a different agency.

If you use a multi-agency credit file check then you'd know. Have you looked at the site I suggested? I use it, it's £7.99 a month, and shows all the information held on you, and which agencies hold it.
Just because you *think* something is one way, it doesn't mean it is. Ignorance doesn't mean something is a scam.

gb12345

Dobbi wrote: »

Which to me is a scam,

If I was you I would either buy a dictionary or go back to school as your understanding of the meaning of common words appears to be lacking.

Dobbi_2

Thomas_Hardy wrote: »

Why should they? The credit agencies primarily work for the businesses that use them to check your credit worthiness, not for you.

If they worked primarily for the business and not for us, then why wouldn't they have the information

Because they charge the business for the use, they charge us the consumer for the use to check, yet they don't have all the facts that's both parties would want to know.

Sorry it's total hogwash, and from a fraud prevention point of view it would make far more sense.

Yet posters seem to think its fine lol.

Not something I am going to bother with anymore and something I take up elsewhere.

Maybe if your guru had said something before, you would all have been agreeing how wrong it is!!!

MamaMoo_2

Dobbi wrote: »

If they worked primarily for the business and not for us, then why wouldn't they have the information

Because they charge the business for the use, they charge us the consumer for the use to check, yet they don't have all the facts that's both parties would want to know.

Sorry it's total hogwash, and from a fraud prevention point of view it would make far more sense.

Yet posters seem to think its fine lol.

Not something I am going to bother with anymore and something I take up elsewhere.

Maybe if your guru had said something before, you would all have been agreeing how wrong it is!!!

Or maybe we're just intelligent enough to understand how it works?
If the banks want the full picture, they search all three credit reference agencies. As it is, the main ones hold probably 95%+ of the relevant information anyway, as most lenders report to all 3 agencies, so it's usually safe for a lender to check one of the main CRAs.
Similarly, one CRA has enough information for you to notice if there's identity fraud as you can see, however if you want to make sure you have the 100% perfect picture, you have to deal with all 3 agencies, whether individually or through a multi-agency credit checker.