National Hunter - what they know about you

grandplonker

Here's what happens when you get your info from National Hunter, thanks to my data request 3 weeks ago.

Who are they? National Hunter is an anti fraud organisation. People like banks and credit card providers send your stuff to NH to get checked over. If NH think it looks dodgy, the red flag it. Then it gets investigated. They're known variously as the 'secret/fourth credit search agency' and

What's the difference to Experian? They are, in effect, a ghost. They're not exactly friendly, or easy to talk to. Anybody else has a normal phone number with somebody you can talk to, a website where you can buy something, a sensible address you could get a look at on Streetview.

The NH website http://www.nhunter.co.uk/ has less than you would get in a phone book. Yellow pages would have a proper address and (unsurprisingly) a phone number. NH mention nothing about a phone and they have a PO Box instead of an office so you don't know where they actually are. (Another reason why NH is a ghost, a ghost can fit inside a PO Box.)

If you want the info they hold on you, you actually have to write a letter, on real paper. You get a 1960s money transfer document (called a 'cheque') and a Victorian era thing called a stamp and send it to the PO Box. And that I did. (Every company has to comply with data requests like that.)

Well, what did I learn? Well, it turns out Casper does actually have a phone (08708506561); I don't know that it works. Perhaps a zombie answers it.

There's a real address, too. 100 Barbirolli Sq, Manchester M2 3AB is a big, modern and otherwise uninteresting office block. Supposedly it's named after a cellist. Perhaps their office junior makes the 43 mile run to Stoke to get the post from the PO Box.

There's a reason why they're only giving me their real address at this stage. They're a registered company, you need to register to a real address and put it on letters but not websites. Their number in England and Wales is 4546325. You can search for them on Companies House, officially listed as N HUNTER LIMITED. As a 'small' company, they have max 50 employees, or max turnover £6.5m/yr.

Speaking of staff? No staff names. It's merely signed 'yours sincerely N HUNTER LTD'. Perhaps a ghost can't hold a pen to sign with.

What did they know about me? Rather boring contact details and my last credit search, really. They have my name, birthday, sex, marital status (just in case they ever start a dating agency), whether I rent or own and my salary.

My address is right, the duration isn't. When I last took out a credit card I slightly misdeclared how long I'd been living where I am, so that's out by a few months.

The rest of it is more to do with anti fraud stuff than credit searches. There's my home and mobile numbers, my email, the IP address I applied for credit from (surprisingly) and my work arrangements. Who, how long, and full/part time. Then there's my bank account.

Then there's six big white boxes with nothing in them, which I think means I'm squeaky clean. It says Matches, History, Reasons, Assessments, Case Management Info and Notes. All say nothing recorded. Reads a little like a criminal record check.

Apparently Casper only knows about one credit search, in April 2013. During the last year I've been through no less than six credit searches between credit cards, overdrafts, phone contracts and so on.

All in all it's turned out to be a rather useless anti climax. It's all correct, though I wasn't to know that. Always best to make sure.

zerog

They told me by email that if nothing was flagged up, they would delete info after 6 months. That might be why they only told you about your last credit search.

If fraud was suspected, data might be held for 6 years.

Thrugelmir

Nothing particularly secretive about what they do.

The NationalHUNTER system is an anti-fraud data sharing system for use by members of the Financial Services Industry.It was founded in 1993, with the assistance of the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML). From the initial six member organisations, the system has grown to include approximately 90 sites, all sharing application information for the purposes of fraud prevention.

N HUNTER Limited is an independent not-for-profit company and is solely concerned with the prevention of application fraud within the Banking and Finance community.

What is Application Fraud?
Application fraud is when an individual or group of individuals apply for financial services and knowingly misrepresents facts within their application. Some examples are given below:

An applicant impersonates another person after obtaining personal information about them and applies in their name.
An application is made and the applicant deliberately fails to disclose previous address information as they have adverse financial information present at that address which would prejudice the chances of the application being successful.
An applicant inflates their annual income to facilitate access to additional borrowing.

How does National HUNTER work?
Eachof our members submits details of applications that they receive for products such as mortgages, credit cards, loans etc.

Applications are checked against existing applications for inconsistencies and similarities that may indicate application fraud using a predefined set of rules. Any applications that warrant investigation are referred for further checks. No applications are automatically declined on the basis of National HUNTER information and all our members are fully audited on their use of the system on a regular basis.

The National HUNTER system is operated by Experian Decision Analytics, part of the Experian group.

We do not hold any credit scoring records, credit histories, information concerning County Court Judgements (CCJs) or bankruptcies, nor do we store Electoral Roll information. The information that is held relates only to applications made to our member organisations, and consists only of the application information supplied by the applicant(s).