Wrong linked addresses in Experian report

captfan

Hello all,

I've received my credit reports from all three agencies. The Equifax and CallCredit ones look OK. But I've found two linked addresses errors in Experian's report.

• They linked to a FEMALE person who happened to have same first and last name with me.
• They all linked to Newcastle where I've never lived at.
• The companies associated with those addresses, O2 and Lloyds Bank, I never had any financial connection with them. For all other companies with linked addresses, I can find my credit information associated with the company in my report, but there isn't any credit information in my report with O2 and Lloyds Bank.
• The creation date for these two addresses were 2009 and 2010 respectively. I happened to have two previous reports from Experian generated in 2013 and 2011, and at that time, those two erroneous information weren't in any of those reports.

To me, I am quite certain it must be their own data entry problem. It is highly unlikely that lenders will only supply this information to Experian but not to Equifax nor CallCredit. So I got in touch with Experian, and they suggested me to contact O2 and Lloyds Bank as they need their authorisation to remove these information from my report. They also explained that the links were connected through profile addresses that were not on my previous report, so I could not see it when viewed my report previously (I don't know what this actually means).

Would you please give me some advice? Shall I get back to Experian again fully explain all my concerns listed above, or shall I get in touch with O2 and Lloyds Bank instead? And for the latter case, how to prove that I don't have any financial connections with them?

Many thanks.

Fan

xHannahx

Raise a dispute through experian dispute centre. They then send a request to the original companies making the error.

I do suspect it's an error by experian processing the data supplied to them and they are fobbing you off though.

Experian_company_representative

Hi Captfan,

I'm sorry that you have incorrect linked addresses showing on your credit report.

Linked addresses are generally created:

- When a company moves an account from one address to another.
- When a company searches your credit report at more than one address during an application.
- From information you have given to us.

We can dispute incorrect linked addresses for you, sometimes the lenders respond asking to speak to you directly.

If you would like me to dispute these for you then please email your full name, DOB and address to uksocialsupport@experian.com and I will investigate further for you.

Many Thanks
Emma

fermi

captfan wrote: »

They linked to a FEMALE person who happened to have same first and last name with me.

That is a pretty blatant example of either a wrong link created by Experian, or probably a complete and absurd failure of their Quality Assurance on the data they receive.

Either way, where something is so obviously wrong such as that, Experian cannot fall back on the excuse of only displaying the data they are given and that they need permission to remove it. Where something is demonstrably and provably wrong, Experian can and have a duty to remove it themselves. Experian often try to obfuscate around it, but make make sure it's clear to them that unless removed you will be taking the matter to the ICO and FOS.

captfan

Thank you all. I've raised disbute with Experian and will update when I hear from them.