CRAs serve no good purpose. Their databases should be destroyed.

c-m

With most companies you can write to them have them destroy your data.

What's the statute that prevents you doing that with Experian and the like? I'm certain something exists but can't it.

agarnett

Hi Mark

Actually since I started the thread I have discovered that the data provider wasn't a sole trader at all, but a big ugly multi-hundred-million pound mail order company using a myriad of names and one not too fussed about ambiguities in registering or recording them for business. The style used by the presumed sole trader JD WILLIAMS TA FIFTY PLUS should have more accurately styled one of the companies within the JD Williams Group of companies who call themselves a catalogue company if you call them up. But of course as with everything on a CRA's computer, accuracy is not a watch word. Hence the quite understandable conclusion I drew from the style in my mother's credit report that looked like the name of a sole trader.

JD WILLIAMS & Company Ltd is "part of N Brown Group plc" of same address. A further company, JD Williams Group Ltd, appears to be the wrapper for the Head Office function. JD Williams & Co Ltd is supposed to be FCA authorised and regulated, though in what manner and for what purpose, who knows? The FCA Register actually shows the following trading / brand names:
J D Williams & Company Limited, Langley House Limited,Compliments,Summer Value,Selections,Highlights,New Now From Fashion World,Classic Detail,Discount World,Sweet Sixteen,Summer Fashion,J D Williams First Financial,Comfortably Yours,Dale Street Shopping,Direct To You,All You Need,Comfortably Yours Limited,Country Garden,Trading By Post Limited,Home Essentials First Financial,Better Living,Whitfords, Bury Boot & Shoe,The Bury Boot & Shoe Company (1953) Limited,Sartor First Financial,Sander & Kay's Trading Post,Premier Man First Financial,The Premier Man Collection,Sander & Kay First Financial,Sander & Kay Limited,Shoe Tailor First Financial,Oxendales First Financial,Heather Valley First Financial,Heather Valley (Woollens) Ltd,Naturally Close,Inspirational Home,The Value Catalogue First Financial,Fashion World First Financial,Classic Confidence First Financial,Simply Be First Financial,Classic Combination First Financial,Candid First Financial,Better Living Limited,Shapely Figures,Fullpower,Home Shopping Direct,Ambrose Wilson First Financial,Ambrose Wilson Limited,The Special Collection,Simply Yours,Fifty Plus,Viva La Diva,vivaladiva.com,Pet Food and Stuff,petfoodnstuff.com,Beau Bath,House of Bath,Shires of Bath,Crazy Clearance,Craftingdirect.com,Crafting Direct,Jacamo,Marisota,The Brilliant Gift Shop,Home Essentials 12 Months,Home Essentials 6 Months,Nightingales,That's My Style,High & Mighty,Williams & Brown,Julipa,Feel Good Essentials,J D Williams & Co Limited,Oxendale & Company Ltd

The FCA register does also contain a record of an Ambrose Wilson Limited listed as a former appointed representative - possibly something to do with insurance intermediation - but not now. The FCA helpfully say "This is an appointed representative (AR) that is no longer an agent of an authorised firm. Do not start to do business with an AR that is listed as 'former'."

The Consumer Credit Register can also be viewed at the FCA website and rather oddly, both Ambrose Wilson and JD Williams are somehow both registered as names for Bank of Scotland (!) under an Interim Permissions Reference Number: 593292

Under another Consumer Credit Registration, JD Williams & Co Ltd itself appears again and also lists Ambrose Wilson under an Interim Permissions Reference Number: 035186 ... the full list of names thereunder is :
Better Living, J D Williams First Financial, Sweet Sixteen, Fullpower, Compliments, Trading Post, Summer Fashion, Williams Leasing, Full Power, Simply Be, Special Collection, Value, Trading By Post, Comfortably Yours, All You Need, Discountworld, Dale Street Shopping, Discount World, Fifty Plus, First Financial Retail Solutions, Home Shopping Direct, Direct To You, Fashion World, Simplybe, Premier Man, Marisota, Candid Collections, Candid, Shapely Figures, Splendour, Aldrex, Ambrose Wilson, Slimma, Your Style, High & Mighty, Julipa, The Gift Box, Shires Of Bath, Classic Style, Vivaladiva, Classic Confidence, Classic Combination, That'S My Style, Melgold, Fabrici, Shopping Sense, The Brilliant Gift Shop, Heather Valley, New Now, Inspirational Home, Oxendales, Country Garden, Sander & Kay, Shoe Tailor, Williams & Brown, Sartor, Jacamo, Sander & Kay'S Trading Post, The Value Catalogue, Watkins & Cole, Bury Boot & Shoe, Whitfords, Naturally Close, Feel Good Essentials, Whitfords Bury Boot & Shoe, Classic Detail, JDW, Velvet Affair, House of Stirling First Financial, Home Essentials, First Financial, Simply Yours, Rose Mary And Thyme, Petfoodnstuff, House Of Bath, Nightingales, Beau Bath, Brilliantspecs, Crafting Direct, Crazy Clearance, J D Williams, The Kids Division, Gray & Osbourn

How long the interim permissions last is not shown.


On on Duedil.com, JD WILLIAMS & CO Ltd is recorded with the following industry description codes :

SIC 2003: 5261 – Retail Sale Via Mail Order House
SIC 2007: 4791 – Retail Sale Via Mail Order Houses Or Via Internet

And related names recorded on Duedil.com include:
• Crazy Clearance • Ambrose Wilson • High and Mighty • House of Bath • Marisota • Simplybe.Co.UK • Feel Good Essentials • Classic Detail • Crazy Bingo • Fifty Plus • Julipa • Oxendales • Anthology • Litesome • Lulu Tout • Nineteen Seventy Eight • Thebrilliantgiftshop


"AMBROSE WILSON" is the other "entity" appearing in my parents' credit report, and I am now guessing it to mean the AMBROSE WILSON LTD (same address as the above) which deposited dormant accounts at Companies House for the period ending March 2014. It will be interesting to see by the end of this year whether it was dormant in period ending March 2015 when it apparently traded with my mother sufficiently to be messing with her credit file - or maybe that was JD Williams & Co Ltd which is the name at the foot of both the ambrosewilson.co.uk and jdwilliams.co.uk websites. On the Experian CRA Credit Report there were entries for both as if they were completely separate, but of course it now looks like Ambrose Wilson is something easily shed like a snake sheds a skin.

When considering why the only entries on my parents' CRA file are from a mail order company, let us not forget that Experian was borne out of Great Universal Stores mail order empire. According to the Wikipedia page on Experian: In the UK during the 1970s, GUS plc, a retail conglomerate with millions of customers paying for goods on credit, employed John Peace, a computer programmer at the time, to combine the mail order data from various GUS businesses and create a central database to which was later added electoral roll data as well as county court judgements. GUS's database was commercialised in 1980 under the name Commercial Credit Nottingham (CCN). In 1996 GUS plc acquired the US credit reporting business Experian, formerly known as TRW Information Services, from Bain Capital and the Thomas H. Lee Partners and merged it into CCN.

autistic.jamie_2

Hi

Over the last 20 years credit agencies have changed the way of calculating individual credit ratings to benefit the growing number of high interest loans after all if persons pay there debts on time, keeping your name and address on electoral roll doesn't give the person a high rating! One aspect they use is the average of people who live in your local area