Experian

[BRIGADIER2JCS]

Did anyone see James Jones on BBC 1 last night very interesting left a lot unanswered imo!

[JamesJ]

A lot of what I said was edited out, so not particularly helpful to people. We've posted a full response on our website which might help illuminate some of the issues. Rest assured we take our responsibilities very seriously and in spite of providing hundreds of millions of checks to lenders and several million reports to the public each year people make very few complaints to the ombudsman/regulator. http://www.experian.co.uk/about-us/dispatches-response.html?intcmp=exphp-dispatches-240214 James

[andydd]

Could you perhaps give a figure, 'very few' is very vague, is it 10, 100, thousands, the quote from the US said there were 40 million instances of incorrect data.

 

I doubt the examples on the program were one-offs, I personally have had problems and there are many threads on here that when problems are identified, Experian are far from helpful.

 

No mention on the website of the incorrect and misleading advice given out to staff by the trainers, is that trainer still at Experian ?, has his advice been rescinded and staff re-trained ?

 

For many of us, Experian's and others attempts to paint themselves as good guys willing to help people get better credit scores is not believable, CRA's exist to provide information to lenders, they are extremely limited as to action they can take to improve people's credit scores and as the program and this site shows, many find the process far more difficult than it should be.

 

The continual plugging of the £14.99 check also worries me, it is not at all suitable for the majority of members of the public to whom the £2 version is far more suitable.

[Lorna2010]

I recently took up the offer of the 30 day free trial. I cannot see how Experian justify the monthly fee AND I am given no CHOICE as to whether I take out their compulsory insurance??? I also found that their credit score differed from the others, how is that???

[BRIGADIER2JCS]

Hi, What is this about compulsory insurance I have use Experian and other agencies personally and professionally for years never heard of this.

 

 

The " credit score" which you see is intended to be a day to day indication of how a credit application will be viewed by a potential lender.

 

 

Reason for variation between files on different agencies:

 

 

1. Each agency uses its own "rating" system working on the data supplied by your creditors.

2. Not every company uses all 3, main agencies, some even use a different agency for different financial products.

3. Some agencies such as Noddle and Check My File basically use "2nd hand" data gathered from the main agencies and are unfortunate often not up to date or totally reliable.

[JamesJ]

andydd - there were 74 complaints made to the Financial Ombudsman Service about all three CRAs in the first half of the year and I believe 26 were upheld. FOS has yet to publish figures about any individual CRA because the complaint volumes are so low. On insurance, the CreditExpert product is a package of benefits of which ID fraud expenses insurance is just one. We do not offer an opt out for any of the individual benefits. However, if people just want to see their credit report then we do offer a standalone credit report for £2. James

[Lorna2010]

Thanks for the reply JamesJ, much appreciated but again the monthly amount charged puts many people off joining plus on a personal note, I would like the option of taking insurance.