UK Credit Reference Agencies Unfit For Purpose and must be reformed

A question about : UK Credit Reference Agencies Unfit For Purpose and must be reformed

The motion is that UK Credit Reference Agencies Have Become Unfit For Purpose and Must Urgently Be Reformed.

I have many reasons (and evidence) to propose the motion ranging from poor access control to bad data management and recording of irrelevant and secret (coded) data.

Anyone else have strong opinions for or against?

Best answers:

• When you think there are probably hundreds of MILLIONS of data recorded every year I think this is as good as it is likely to get.
  In forty years I have never had any bother from what they have down against my name.
  As long as it is clear to both parties how and when to amend or remove data - which I think it is - it is fine by me.
• CRAs enjoy multi-billion turnovers. I am not impressed by a layman's interpretation of the difficulty of their data processing tasks. Not sure CRAs have been a feature of the landscape for 40 years yet either!
  I was attacked by identity fraudsters nearly 4 years ago who started the attack by obtaining a credit report in my name over the internet.
  There was a security hole in the CallCredit system. I have read very little about it but as I believe identity fraud is largely serious organised crime in the UK, I imagine 4 years ago, thousands had their credit reports downloaded by fraudsters.
  Contrary to your suggestion, I would say it is far from clear who is permitted to add and delete data or how or when. Even Equifax are guilty of telling me at the end of October in "deleted search enquiry" "alerts" that searches made by motor insurers who were simply quoting for my motor insurance in February had been deleted, but when I downloaded my credit report recently, the searches were still there. They should never have been permitted in the first place. I never authorised them. I remember refusing one insurer that notified me that they would do a search and told them to stick it. Four other companies did the searches without disclosing the fact.
  At about the same time I had a "Beneficiary Search" by a division of Capita. I have no business with Capita. They have not written and no-one has in fact written to tell me why they were sniffing around my Credit Reference Agency files.
  I have recently been the victim of ID fraud again (fraudulent additional credit card application made over the internet with one of my existing providers) and the large bank involved has not even caused a New Credit Agreement alert on my file when it was opened many weeks ago, and now they know it was fraudulent has not yet caused any CIFAS marker to show either (despite telling me they would do so).
  Hence my proposed motion that CFAs are not fit for purpose. Records are not being maintained correctly by our largest banks, and nefarious providers, prospective providers and government sponsored sniffers are being granted access for no good reason.
• Having recently requested my statutory report from Experian, and having to wait 7 days (and counting) to receive my "pin letter", I can agree with this.
• CRA's enable people to obtain finance at highly competitive rates of interest. So yes they do serve a useful purpose. People forget how pedantic the pre technology processes were, and how slow they were.
  Better to explain the chip on your shoulder. As initially everyone starts on the same level playing field.
• According to an article in the Independant a few weeks ago the amount of personal debt in the UK presently stands at Ј1.43 trillion, close to its all time high. The accumulation of this will very largly have involved the use of the Credit Rating Agencies and it would appear that in general the system works well. Given the sheer volume of transactions mistakes are bound to occur but to describe the system as unfit for purpose is patently incorrect.
• Why bother posting if all you can so is insult people who do not agree with the thrust of your argument?
• Let's sum up before these two inadequates dishonestly twist the state of play:
  Thirteen posts in the thread so far:
• Simple introduction of topic for discussion by OP (me)
• Rather brief and poorly based counter the motion statement by jonesy suggesting that the transaction volumes were remarkable and therefore some excuse for mistakes.
• Detailed evidence by me rebutting jonesy and further in support of the motion
• Brief evidence from Stephen C in support of the motion
• Thrugelmir steps in with brief counter assertion about how pedantic and slow things were and that the existing system enabled competition for the benefit of customers, then for no reason known to man decides to accuse the OP of having a chip on the shoulder.
• Spirited rebuttal by me offering translation to Thrugelmir's mistaken assertion on competition in lending, and fair enough question by me to Thrugelmir about his unexplained outburst about some "chip on the shoulder" he seemed to be accusing me of.
• Counter assertion to motion by nidO with fair enough examples
• Rather brief and poorly based counter assertion by safestored based on his wonder of big numbers
• Rebuttal by me referring again to the illogical reference to big number volumes used wrongly as an excuse for some mismanagement of data.
• Bleat by stephen that he has been insulted
• Support for the bleater by Thrugelmir who again accuses OP of a chip on the shoulder with no explanation.
• Thrugelmir then double-posts to dissemble on answering why he took an unwarranted pop. He or she still hasn't explained other than to suggest that if I have some personal experience which should not have happened to me, my views do not count? I am not sure what sort of experience he is referring to because a chip on the shoulder usually refers to a grievance held by an employee against an employer. In any event Thrugelmir prefers to raise that again rather than discuss the thread topic further.
• This post

These forums are not for the faint-hearted if you hold an anti-financial-services-co.s-status-quo type view. The progress of the thread so far perhaps reflects the type of spin, deflection, weak-mindedness, and gang mentality that often pervades and continues to support the awful cultures that caused the financial crisis.
If you ever hear that the financial services industry has righted its wrongs and is a different animal to the one that crashed us into the buffers five years ago then you can be sure you are in the presence of liars, spin merchants, delusional types or simple ignoramuses.

• Victim you asked for a discussion - some have given their opinion - a straw poll of views so far would indicate about 90% of posters have no grudges with the system as it is.
  If you wanted people to agree with you you should have stated so at the beginning instead of asking for people to ''discuss''.
• I did the straw poll at post #13. The conclusion was that there were plenty of naysayers who just visit the thread to ridicule the premise and the OP without offering any evidence to back up their assertions.
  Mr Khalvashi, your views are interesting on a certain level, but why do you too assert that mistakes requiring intervention by customers are acceptable, especially in a monopoly business whose specialty is maintaining accurate data ? When you were involved in the original semi-monopoly Airport taxi business I remember you once mentioning, did you grow it by making mistakes by picking up fares late or delivering them to the wrong destinations? I appreciate that once the airport deal was done, most business fell in your lap as competition was effectively stifled and maybe mistakes could be tolerated without significant loss of turnover or growth on the back of particular lo-cost airline expansion, but as I am sure your business did not do, setting out to tolerate mistakes is not really a good way to run any business, is it?
• What I find completely unacceptable is when data is put into peoples credit files without being checked properly.
  I've read so many occurrences of data being added to the credit file of someone who has the same name as the debtor when there's a DOB mismatch. Such things should NEVER happen because it's so easy to check.