If Experian say "identification failed" who do you contact to ask why?

jessimac

Never needed a loan before, but have have had same bank account for years, been with Lloyds for Visa card for years, on electoral roll same place for years (checked with Council), never been in debt etc.

Loan company said there was an issue with Credit Check, so joined MSE Credit Club for Experian check - came back "you have failed the Experian identification process".

Problem is, there seems to be no way to ask them 'why' (all the various facts I entered are correct e.g. DOB).

Question - What phone number/email address/link do I use to query this with Experian?

They are heavily automated (to maximise profits) so I assume a possible Catch-22 - how do you ask "why am I, Joe Blow at Flat 5, Acacia Block, Yew Road, Birmingham B1 1AA, failing your ID process?" if they (apparently) won't even let you speak to them until you have passed an ID process...??

One thought I had was that the address formatting might be relevant - my ages old bank account has "5, Acacia Block, Yew Road, Birmingham B1 1AA" whereas nowadays the Post Office pull "1" and "B1 1AA" up as "Flat 5, Acacia Block, 20 Yew Road, Birmingham B1 1AA".

Two points on that: a) for every other debit/credit/billing operation I do, to my knowledge it has always been sufficient to get the '5' and the 'B1 1AA' correct for their systems to ok any purchase. Ironically, same thing for Experian - put in the same number and postcode, and it pulls back a valid address (Flat 5, Acacia Block, 20 Yew Road, Birmingham B1 1AA). So why would they not be able to do same with address matching for bank vs. Post Office file?

b) second point is that it might seem that the sensible thing to do would be to ask my bank to revise their address for me to match the Post Office file (they are clearly at fault for not having routinely updated their own PAF formatting) - however the question is, would Experian then assume I had just changed address and penalise me accordingly? (their lousy systems would probably see my bank address "5, Acacia Block, Yew Road, Birmingham B1 1AA" as being different from "Flat 5, Acacia Block, 20 Yew Road, Birmingham B1 1AA".

Also, I have no idea how long it would take for my bank details change to filter through to Experian.

As it goes, I would also like to know why Experian can't either advise where ID fails (e.g. address) or what they consider to be the 'correct address'  which I should ensure all other banking addresses get changed to (reading between the lines  I assume the Post Office file, but not clear).

Experian made at least £97m last year (yeah, and the rest) so one would hope they could staff a department with say 3 people to deal with non-standard enquiries such as mine.

Thanks for any assistance

D3xt3r5L4b

The standard “contact us” details available on Google

jessimac

You seem to be suggesting that contacting Experian with this kind of enquiry is easy and free. Did you actually check before posting that answer?

e.g. "Our customer support teams are only a phone call away, ready to offer help and guidance about your report and score.If you want to benefit from this level of support, upgrade to our CreditExpert product."

Similarly: "If you have any issues with your statutory report, you can only resolve them using the contact form at the top of the page" - but no such Contact Form exists...

Ditto: "When ordering you can choose to get your report online or as a paper copy in the post. You'll also need to give us your full name, date of birth and your address history for the last six years" - the fields on this form look exactly the same as the MSE Credit Club fields... which of course just leads to 'ID failure' and a dead end.

So you see, perhaps a more complex problem than you seem to realise.

There is a postal address, which may be the route I have to take - though even that does not guarantee that they will just quote 'ID failure' again.

If anyone has actually had a similar experience to myself, and can offer a substantive answer as opposed to guesswork, that would be appreciated.

JGB1955

What happens when you use their freephone number to contact them? 

"Call us on 0800 013 8888  Our call centres are open Monday - Friday, 10am - 3pm".

EDIT.... I also notice that a webchat pop-up appears on their 'contact us' page.

dr_adidas01

jessimac said:

You seem to be suggesting that contacting Experian with this kind of enquiry is easy and free. Did you actually check before posting that answer?

e.g. "Our customer support teams are only a phone call away, ready to offer help and guidance about your report and score.If you want to benefit from this level of support, upgrade to our CreditExpert product."

Similarly: "If you have any issues with your statutory report, you can only resolve them using the contact form at the top of the page" - but no such Contact Form exists...

Ditto: "When ordering you can choose to get your report online or as a paper copy in the post. You'll also need to give us your full name, date of birth and your address history for the last six years" - the fields on this form look exactly the same as the MSE Credit Club fields... which of course just leads to 'ID failure' and a dead end.

So you see, perhaps a more complex problem than you seem to realise.

There is a postal address, which may be the route I have to take - though even that does not guarantee that they will just quote 'ID failure' again.

If anyone has actually had a similar experience to myself, and can offer a substantive answer as opposed to guesswork, that would be appreciated.

Well from my googling of Contact Experian it gave me this number for there customer service  0344 481 0800. Which if you have inclusive minutes on your mobile will be free. Have you tried this to see if it works? 

Also googled email address for Experian UK and got this: customerservices@uk.experian.com

If any of the methods I’ve found aren’t suitable for you then perhaps you will just have to send them a letter!! 

jessimac

Thanks for at least providing the results of your Googling compared to the previous commentator. No idea why people waste time to state the obvious - 'Duh, why don't you Google' when it is clearly the first thing everybody does anyway...

That number (0344 481 0800) does come up in Google when you type in Experian Contact, but the actual contact number they list on their own site is different - 0800 013 8888.

https://ins.experian.co.uk/contact

And, as mentioned, it specifically says: " If you want to benefit from this level of support, upgrade to our CreditExpert product."

However, once Monday comes I shall try both and report back.

That page also specifically excludes mentioning an email address, but again I am happy to try the one you mention and shall report back.on that as well.

Yes, a letter would be the last resort.

However, I've seen enough of the Experian website already to guess what type of company they are - making money hand over fist from little real effort (just acting as a sort of data repository and switchboard) with a company philosophy of spending as little as possible on customer services. Not  a problem if, say, a department store chain - you can go elsewhere. But a big problem if they are effectively the gatekeepers to much needed finance.

Another UK company with excessive power but no matching responsibility.

jessimac

JGB1955 - are you looking at the same page as me? https://ins.experian.co.uk/contact

If so, you'll see it says: "Our customer support teams are only a phone call away, ready to offer help and guidance about your report and score.If you want to benefit from this level of support, upgrade to our CreditExpert product.", -  i.e. pay up or go away - as I have already mentioned.

No webchat appears for me - though maybe due to being Saturday.

However calling that number provides more evidence of Experian being a badly managed company:

- the recorded message says they are open 9-3.30 at the moment - yet their website says something entirely different - 10-3.

- the recorded message suggests you contact them via the email address on their Contact Us page. There is no email address there.

Glassdoor often a good site to turn to when you suspect a company is badly run. To be fair Experian actively engage in responding to staff comments there (albeit maybe from a standard PR script). There are loads of 5-star reviews from current staff, which usually indicates that staff have been actively encouraged to post such reviews, so best to ignore those.

This review is more like the internal situation I envisage at the company: "We have to rely on the technology team for their support but again their is internal politics on how and when and if we should approach them.Our leaders dont seem to agree on the approach to solve any practical problems as a team.We only get to hear fancy words and jargons from their head and endless lectures on platforms and standards till the cows come home but never a practical solution."

If they can't even update their website daily, and refer to email addresses that don't exist, not a great indicator.

dr_adidas01

jessimac said:

Thanks for at least providing the results of your Googling compared to the previous commentator. No idea why people waste time to state the obvious - 'Duh, why don't you Google' when it is clearly the first thing everybody does anyway...

That number (0344 481 0800) does come up in Google when you type in Experian Contact, but the actual contact number they list on their own site is different - 0800 013 8888.

https://ins.experian.co.uk/contact

And, as mentioned, it specifically says: " If you want to benefit from this level of support, upgrade to our CreditExpert product."

However, once Monday comes I shall try both and report back.

That page also specifically excludes mentioning an email address, but again I am happy to try the one you mention and shall report back.on that as well.

Yes, a letter would be the last resort.

However, I've seen enough of the Experian website already to guess what type of company they are - making money hand over fist from little real effort (just acting as a sort of data repository and switchboard) with a company philosophy of spending as little as possible on customer services. Not  a problem if, say, a department store chain - you can go elsewhere. But a big problem if they are effectively the gatekeepers to much needed finance.

Another UK company with excessive power but no matching responsibility.

Actually from experience on this forum, not everyone does google and just asks there question and expects others to put in the time and effort finding answers that they could simply get from googling there question themselves. 

So the first answer you got is often a very valid response. 

jessimac

>>So the first answer you got is often a very valid response. <<

Nope, I'm afraid we'll have to agree to disagree on that one.

The first respondent did nothing but suggest I Google - given everybody with a brain knows about Google, that was effectively him suggesting I was dumb not to have Googled in the first place. Actually, given he wasted numerous keystrokes to suggest the obvious, I'd suggest that of the two of us, he is dumber.

You at least did provide information (a phone number) though as I point out, this is not the number suggested by the Experian contact page. And their number indicates that a fee is payable just to call them.

In the interest of helping other Forum users however, I shall phone all the various numbers and report back.

Thrugelmir

jessimac said:

However, I've seen enough of the Experian website already to guess what type of company they are - making money hand over fist from little real effort (just acting as a sort of data repository and switchboard) with a company philosophy of spending as little as possible on customer services. 

If you aren't paying them a fee. Why should they provide you with a first class service?  

twhitehousescat

Thrugelmir said:

jessimac said:

However, I've seen enough of the Experian website already to guess what type of company they are - making money hand over fist from little real effort (just acting as a sort of data repository and switchboard) with a company philosophy of spending as little as possible on customer services. 

If you aren't paying them a fee. Why should they provide you with a first class service?  

if they are holding your data , why should they not be answereable when the info has been collated incorrectly