Credit Reports
 

going on from my thread re my friend who may be facing redundancy, I have been doing some online research for him. I came across Experian who offer a free credit report , and 30 day free trial of the creditexpert monitoring service... has anyone tried it???? I thought it might be interesting to see what I'm rated as:lol1:

Yes, and it isn't really a con as long as you remember to cancel.

Steve

Yep it's a good service, main reason they offer it for free is it allows them to fill in any blanks about you they might have.. the sign up is pretty extensive!

However as said if you cancel within a month, you will have got it perfectly free no catch... well other than you won't be able to get it free again, ever.. :)

But then they have your details, or even more details. But dont forget to cancel.

Make sure you work out how to cancel when you sign up. Once you leave the sign up page it is difficult to find the info again...... but yes - it works and it is free

I use it, i pay the £5.99 a month to have the monitoring service too. Just enables me to check movement on my file whenever I want, also lets me know when theres activity in my file. I'm just a bit paranoid about fraud you see

I've done nothing wrong,been a super good boy but don't want to see mine!

Did it once about 15 years ago to find out why I couldn't have a loan.Turned out because I didn't borrow money I was a bad risk!

Do Equifax hold different info ? I have just registered for there gold monitoring system.

If it's anything like here (Canada), then you may well have different info appear with the different credit report people.

I wanted to apply for an overdraft, and it was declined. I was told that it was something on my credit history, had I any outstanding collections, which I didn't, but I mentioned that I had, a few years ago, had a letter from a collection agency which was nothing to do with me, and the collection and cable company told me to ignore this as it obviously wasn't my account. I took their advice, which, as I found out, was somewhat foolish.

I initially used TransUnion. I could not sign up online, so had to phone them. They said I had a very "thin" credit file, as I didn't have much credit history here, thus I could not sign up online as some of the questions it would ask I could not answer as they'd not be in my file. Anyway, they said to print off a form and fax it over and they would mail me my report for free. Which I did.

It contained some, but not all info, as I later found out. But hey, it was free!

I then used Equifax, and paid a one time fee to get a credit report. These guys didn't have a problem with my "thin" credit history and I was able to sign up online.

Viewing the report I saw the collection item on my credit report. So I contacted the collection agency, who bounced me to the cable company, who bounced me back to the collection agency, who then decided to remove the item from my file. I waited a couple of weeks, then used Equifax to check my report again, and the item was cleared and I got my overdraft :)

The bank did tell me that it was quite possible for different credit agencies to have different info on file, hence the difference between TransUnion and Equifax. I pointed out that this was a tad silly, and got a reply of "I know" and a shrug of the shoulders.

One could call it overkill, but it could be worth running a credit check from two different companies to see if the same, or different things crop up.

What about the other two CRA's though, as its not likely they will have the same info as it depends what companies supply them the information, most do not supply all three, so its a waste of money as you can still be defrauded.

Do they not share the information?

All my credit accounts and info is on my file, if they all hold different info, this wouldn't be the case would it?

No they do not share their core info, lenders/creditors may report to just 1, 2 or all 3 of the main CRA's. It bascally boils down to who your creditor is...

They do share stuff like CIFAS & GAIN which are the anti-fraud and 'gone away' data sets.

They are not dodgy - I did the free trial through a cash back site quidco and actually got paid £7 for signing up. Rang up to cancel after I'd seen the credit info and before the first payment was due - they were polite and decent about it, no pressure to stay signed up or anything.

I tried one of these once but was still getting calls from loan companies nearly 12 months later trying to sell me finance

What? Experian & Equifax etc wouldn't be trying to sell you finance, and they wouldn't be passing on your info for finance marketing campaigns either. If you were getting finance marketing calls it'll be from some other source and not the CRA's.

Don't be too sure, these companies are not government bodies of any sort, they are companies with the ability to hold vast amounts of data, they obviously have to abide by the Data Protection Act plus about four others, but it is likely after applying for you Credit Record you will miss the part about releasing your information to third parties.

Even worse, if you CCJ on anything, a company (registered with the FSA) somehow has a right to send you finance marketing "that is in your interest"

go figure?

I don't honestly remember which firm it was with, was prob a good 18 months ago now, think they hae given up as i've moved house, changed telephone numbers etc