Does CIFAS do More harm than good? share your experiences ..

Galeeno

There have been alot of negative things from Cifas, such as after getting it, they can close your current accounts?/ or remove your overdraft facility.

or when applying for credit in the future, it will be rejected (even if your credit file is good).. something about assuming you are a fraudster?

when the whole point is to protect you from other potential fraudsters?

so in them cases Cifas has done more harm than good?

What are your negative experiences with CIFAS ?
(and also your positive experiences too) ?

Thrugelmir

What's your angle?

I assume this to be a personal issue.

JuicyJesus

CIFAS ensures that those who commit financial crime are effectively screened out of committing it again. Protective registration also helps protect against identity theft for those paranoid about such things, or those who have been subject to it.

So no, it doesn't. It's a good thing.

alansmith7

i personally think its a good thing but it does not harm you for applying for credit and it does not affect your credit rating

gotmurked

I was a processor for a credit institution albeit back in the late 90s and at the end of an application there was a code for CIFAS marker present. In the company I worked for this would result in a decline. In-house policy possibly due to the extra work involved maybe - and could of course be handled differently now.

I remember not knowing what CIFAS meant at the time, but thinking it must be bad due to applicants being declined for it. It wasn't until a while later I researched what CIFAS actually meant, and initially thought it meant the applicant was a fraudster. Of course know differently now.

jrawle

Just saw this thread. CIFAS is a pain, and I believe it is more for the protection of the financial institutions than the customer, as the former has to repay any money in the event of fraud anyway.

My personal experience is quite a long story, but to summarise. I experienced fraud on my credit card account, which I noticed the same day as I happened to log in and check my account online. As a result my card was blocked promptly and it stopped the fraudsters making a further transaction (which they did attempt).

So, I had a CIFAS "protective registration" for 12 months. I had no plans to take out any more credit for the next year, and it didn't prevent me opening savings accounts with just the automatic online checks.

However, my phone contract came to an end, and I wanted to switch. I wanted a deal via mobiles.co.uk, part of Carphone Warehouse (CPW) with a T-Mobile contract. The application was rejected. CPW couldn't tell me why as they just do the checks via T-Mobile. Yet the CIFAS rules clearly state firms using CIFAS data are not allowed to tell you your application is rejected purely because of a CIFAS registration.

I eventaully got through to T-Mobile's awful customer services department and they finally confirmed I'd only been turned down because of CIFAS. I had to fax various documents to prove my identity. They would then have opened an account for me, but only direct with T-Mobile, not the deal I wanted from CPW. Even after I'd faxed the documents, there was no way to link this to an application made via CPW, so I was simply rejected again. The sales rep at CPW was then rather rude and condescending, and said they could reject who they wanted and that was it. (Remember, T-Mobile had told me the only reason my application was held up was because of CIFAS; this should have been communicated to CPW as a request for ID, not a rejection, but it seems their system doesn't allow this).

Anyway, I don't intend this to be a blow-by-blow account. But I did contact CIFAS a couple of times to complain. Someone called Christine Cheung replied, confirmed that they aren't allowed to turn an application down just because of a CIFAS marker, and said she'd write to T-Mobile, but it seems all she ever did was forward my letter without a covering letter (at least that's what T-Mobile claim). So CIFAS's intervention had no effect. So don't believe their claims that a CIFAS registration won't prevent you from getting credit when you otherwise would have done.

As my previous deal was ending, I switched to a cheaper SIM only deal with my existing network instead. As a result, it cost me £90 extra over the year.

I did eventually manage to get a complaint escalated at T-Mobile and a call from someone in their executive office. The lady said she had spoken to someone at CPW and could now process my application if I wanted. I said it was much too late, but that I was concerned that the same would happen to anyone else with a CIFAS marker on their file. I wanted the system to be fixed for other people too, not just them make an exception for me after to much hassle. Of course, nothing was done. I did plan to write to one of the columns in a national newspaper to see if it could be sorted, but in the end never got round to doing so.

I also wrote to CPW's complaints department, but never received a reply.

So if you have CIFAS on your credit file and plan to take out a phone contract through a third party, forget it. And if you think you can write to CIFAS and they will sort out any problems you have due to it, forget that too. It's a scheme designed for the benefit of the industry, not for the consumer.

The_Boss

I have a CIFAS marker on my file from identity theft in August, due to stay on for a year. Haven't applied for any credit since but will post my experience if I do.