Help! Credit Spring - Identity Verification and Credit Quotation Search but not made by DH

onthemend88

We have just had an Equifax alert about a new soft search from a company called Credit Spring who have undertaken ID verification and credit quotation - the only issue is, DH has not made any credit applications (other than our current mortgage application) in months! 

Really worried that someone has access to his details and is trying to use them to take out a loan. We are going through a mortgage application at the moment and could really do without this added stress right now. 

We have emailed the company to query it but they are not open until Monday morning. 

Is there anything imminently we can do to stop his details being accessed to prevent this from happening other than changing his passwords?

Willing2Learn

The creditspring website says they are open Monday to Friday from 9am to 6pm.  So they should be open tomorrow.  Their phone number is 020-3870-3332


All your DH can do, is to  keep an eye on the data recorded on their three credit files.  As long as you both stay vigilant, then everything should be fine.

onthemend88

Ive just deleted all browsing history etc and changed the password he used for his emails (he has been getting a lot of phishing emails over the last few days) 

It is Saturday tomorrow so will have to give them a call Monday. 

Makes me so angry that people can do this!

onthemend88

Hi @Willing2Learn

Is it worth raising a dispute with Equifax? The only problem is I know if a NOD is raised, it could flag it up to other lenders whereas as the moment, because it is only a soft search, it is only visible to us.

Also, if we contact Credit Spring on Monday, would they look at registering a CIFAS due to it being identity theft?

I just don't want anything messing up our mortgage application. 

[Deleted User]

It's most likely to be a marketing soft search.

There's no evidence of identity theft at the moment.

At least wait until you've spoken to them.

onthemend88

Thanks @Deleted_User

Are they allowed to perform ID checks and credit quotations for marketing purposes even without consent?

[Deleted User]

They need a lawful basis, one of which could be consent. Very often you give consent via aggregators/comparison sites.

onthemend88

@Deleted_User

I really didn't realise they could do this. Can they do this at any point, even if you haven't used comparison sites etc for a while?

[Deleted User]

Within a 'reasonable' period. It's all to do with their data retention policies, which need to be justified.