Equifax

pastafarian

Warning: long post.

I'm checking my credit record with all the agencies as I've been seriously ill for over two years and have been unable to keep up with stuff properly. I live alone. I've had an account with Experian for several years, and am happy with them. This has been a godsend in light of the treatment I've had from Equifax.

I tried, three times, to register an account with Equifax and was horrified to see that the verification information they were asking me to authenticate, is completely wrong, it refers to mortgages and bank accounts I am supposed to have created at certain dates, and what has been presented to me, is fiction.

I followed their procedure to contact Equifax customer services; they are somewhere in the Far East. I did this twice. I explained as clearly as I could what the problems were, and couldn't get any sensible response. Apart from the accents of the two people I spoke to being alien to me and very difficult to understand, when they realised they couldn't deal with my problems they both resorted to reading the script about Equifax's services.

I searched Equifax's website and found their contact address, not their registered office address, this one is a box number in Leicester. I sent them a special delivery letter, to be delivered by 1pm on 27 April, asking them to contact me by phone so we could sort this out, and I could get my credit report. Royal Mail returned it to me this morning marked 'Gone away'.

I searched the ICO site for the address that Equifax say is their contact address, and the search result comes back saying 'There are no entries that match your search criteria'.

With everything we know about keeping ourselves safe online, would you deal with a company that puts a false address on its website and is uncontactable, gives you fictional financial information for authentication, and uses a far eastern customer service setup that you can't understand and can't solve your problems anyway, would you deal with this company? No, of course you wouldn't, you'd run away screaming because they are clearly untrustworthy and only after what they can scam you for.

I tried registering an account with CallCredit and this failed too, probably because I'm not on the electoral register, yet, I registered online in February and contacting Experian, they told me on Monday, that records are in the process of being updated 'as we speak' but it has to be done manually, and should be completed within a week or so. CallCredit responded quickly to an email for help, and they pointed me to Checkmyfile.com, and I'm getting somewhere. The electoral roll problem is still there but this company has a process for helping people around that and verifying their identity, so I can get my combined credit report from the other companies.

I've since learmed, from this site, that Equifax are in Bradford, not Leicester, but they've proved themselves too slimy for me to try to deal with direct again, and my next action is the ECO complaints procedure. Would I trust Equifax? Not on your life.

kgw1009

I was just going to post to see if Equifax have a rep who replies on this forum?

fermi

kgw1009 wrote: »

I was just going to post to see if Equifax have a rep who replies on this forum?

No, they don't.

MisterBaxter

When you tried to register was at least one of the accounts they were asking you to verify in each list correct?

I seem to recall that this was their verification process when I signed; they give you a list of possible mortgage accounts, loan accounts, bank accounts etc. and you are supposed to choose the one that is yours, like a multiple choice quiz. If you get the wrong one you have failed the verification process, get the right one and you are verified. Only one of the account options is correct, the others are there so that you have think about the response and choose correctly.

pastafarian

That process makes sense, but for all the lists offered to me, the answer to your question is 'No', none of the options were correct.

I've emailed my complaint to the ICO now, with PDF copies of my letter to Equifax and the envelope it was sent in marked 'Addressee moved away' by Royal Mail.

PETIE

Equifax Registered Address,

Capital House
25 Chapel Street
London
NW1 5DS

HereBeDragons_2

Equifax's customer service is truly awful.

I decided to ring them recently after writing to them in Leicester (I had no problems finding their address) to resolve an issue with previous electoral roll info missing on my Equifax statutory report. I'd supplied proof of my enrolment dates and asked them to update my report, but received a written reply which made no sense at all and was written in bad English. Foolishly I thought it would be easy enough to ring up and clarify whether my report had actually been updated with the missing info, and to request a new copy of it.

I went through seven circles of hell with call handler after call handler, none of whom could understand why I was ringing for clarification nor confirm whether my report had been updated or not. One guy gave totally different answers every time I rephrased the question, and refused to send me a new copy of my report. All on a costly 0845 number.

In the end I hit on the bright idea of asking to be put through to a manager, on the grounds I wanted to make complaint. Bingo - got put through to their Wexford centre in Ireland, and spoke to a helpful and apologetic manager there. It was obvious she is used to having calls escalated from the central overseas call handlers. So do the same - don't waste your time and money speaking to the very sweet, but useless call handlers.

I'd also ordered my report from Experian at the same time and had spotted a different error on that. Their response was professional and swift, I was written to with several updates and once the issue was resolved I was sent a new copy of my statutory report without having to ask for it. The contrast couldn't have been greater.

MisterBaxter

I had a different experience when doing a correction on my Equifax report. Paid for my statutory report, reported the error through the website, within a couple of days I had an email back stating that the error had been corrected and that I could download the updated version of the report. I can't comment on their telephone customers services as I didn't have to contact them but for simple issues I suggest using the online correction request. Obviously this isn't going to be of any use if you can't sign up for an account in the first instance.

The only problem I find with their site is that from the main login page I can never seem to find the option buying a statutory report, they only seem to have the subscription options.

pastafarian

Thank you, HereBeDragons! Love the user name, do you read Terry Pratchett? Now I've started the complaints procedure I think I need not to interfere with that. The problem is, Equifax need to be made to demonstrate where their information came from. My asking for it to be corrected is a procedure full of holes. I can't disprove it because you can't prove or disprove a negative, it's logically impossible.

pastafarian

@Mister Baxter

Their procedures might be adequate if you can sign up as a customer. The problems they presented me with meant I can't do that. An objective observer looking at the problems I had in trying to sign up, the uselessness of their customer support, and their not having a valid contact address on their website, would come to the conclusion that they're a rogue company only trying to scam the gullible.

fermi

May have already tried, but...

https://equifaxuk.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/225/~/whats-the-equifax-complaints-procedure%3F

E-mail
E-mail us direct at [EMAIL="Customer.RelationsUK@equifax.com"]Customer.RelationsUK@equifax.com[/EMAIL]

If that fails, then..

How to take your formal complaint further
If we’ve sent you our final response or it’s been more than eight weeks since you made your complaint, you can ask the Financial Ombudsman Service to investigate this for you. Please find contact information below.


Financial Ombudsman Service
Exchange Tower
London
E14 9SR


Telephone: 0845 080 1800
E-mail: [EMAIL="complaint.info@financial-ombudsman.org.uk"]complaint.info@financial-ombudsman.org.uk[/EMAIL]
Website: http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk

Don't necessarily have to wait 8 weeks if you are having difficulty making your initial complaint, as the FOS can write with that for you which Equifax are unlikely to ignore.

http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/consumer/complaints.htm

If you’d like us to contact them for you, just get in touch.