Annualcreditreport.co.uk - Please read!

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I want to share with you my experience with this company so that you can hopefully learn from it.

I have signed up for their free credit report in January. They are providing information from a credit reference agency called CallCredit. According to Martin :money:, only a small percentage of banks uses them for credit scoring (please see the list here: http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cgi-bin/viewnews.cgi?newsid1129725802,83707,)

The report is completely free. No strings attached, no credit card details, I wanted to start with this - this is a very good deal and one not to miss. However, once you have received your free report, do not spend money on their additional services.

I have obtained my free report in January. It is a very good guideline for your credit standing but you can not rely on it. There were some accounts that have not been updated since September 2006. The "missed payments" section is not informative and would not tell you why the sudden yellow and red spots appear. However, I would liek to state that this is not a bad guideline to your credit report but it cannot be relied on.

they have introduced a service, as I noticed yesterday, that they get monthly updates of my credit report for a monthly fee of £2.97. I have, of course, became really excited because I have paid off half my debts since last november and I wanted to see the updated report. I paid the first installment, and fairly enough, the report appeared on the screen.

This was when I realised that the report is absolutely identical to the first one. It did not contain correct electoral roll information. It had balances of £978 on a credit card that I ahve, in face, cut up and cancelled 2 months ago. and the final shock was when I checked the updates: "Updated 30 December 2006" and "Updated 26 November 2006" everyewhere. To put it plainly, they have not updated my report. There was no single change. Nothing. I have received nothing for my money. In addition to this, there was one account that had been updated in September, according to the first record, and then updated in November, according to the second report. (no change, just the date) Since I requested my first request in January, surely they must have had the November updates by then, but for some reason they did not give me that. Either a scam or they have a horrendeously bad software.

I contacted them by email and had a long email correspondence today with their customer services manager, Ian. He was trying to help and seemed like a genuine person but refused to refund my money, even though I explained that I have received no service for the money because there is not a single piece of information that I did not see on my free report. not even a payment update. In the end he even implied that I wanted a refund because I was unhappy with my credit report! I decided to let it go but I wanted to write down my experiences.

Please never ever purchase the monthly report from them - its not worth it, its jsut their way of getting money out of you. Get the free one, its a good indicator, then forget about the site. As MArtin says in the credit report article, don't let them bully you into buying online products because they are useless.

Good old statutory paper reports for £2, here I come

Thank you for reading my post.