Welcome

Welcome

This blog is all about credit reporting – concentrating on the UK. Those of us who’ve set it up it have all worked for a multi-national credit reference agency and have decided that consumers deserve a better deal than they are getting at the moment. Which is why we have launched www.creditreportadvice.co.uk – a website full of free information about your credit report and how banks and other lenders use your details.

Your credit report, also known as your credit file or your credit reference is used every time you apply for credit – and usually when you apply to rent a property, open a savings or bank account. It can be used at other times, too, like if you are made the director of a company, or the trustee of a charity, or if you apply for a financially sensitive job.

Many people – too many people – don’t know what information is held about them, who can see it or when it is used.  We hope that our new website and this blog will help people to find out more about this important subject. The website also offers the chance of one-to-one advice about your personal credit report. We think this is a good idea.

So, what do YOU think?

Photocopier identity fraud scare

HOW many of us know that when we photocopy a document the copied image is stored on the machine’s hard drive? I didn’t know this until I saw this clip on YouTube http://www.wimp.com/copymachines/.  I feel pretty silly to be honest! I’ve been banging on for years about the importance of shredding any papers that contain personal information – and now find that I’ve been happily photocopying some of my most detailed documents on machines that could end up anywhere – even in the hands of an identity fraudster.

My concerns around identity fraud stem from the fact that when your identity is stolen, you invariably lose your good credit history. It is only people with good credit histories who are targeted by ID fraudsters, by the way, because they use your reputation to get credit in your name.

And it is your credit report which bears witness to the activities of such fraudsters – detailing how much credit has been obtained in your name, when and from which lender: If you’re the victim of identity fraud, your credit report will make sorry reading.

So – back to this photocopier scandal. Just think what documents you photocopy as a matter of course. I keep copies of important documents I am sending in the post just in case they get lost; letters that I haven’t kept on  computer; application forms that were filled in by hand – recently for a visa and in the past for a passport, for insurance cover, for a driving licence, for a university course. Then there are the papers you copy because you just want to have spares to hand – birth, marriage, divorce and death certificates, exam diplomas, driving licence, passport… the list is long.

Now learn that the photocpier you use – whether it be at work, at home, in a shop or office you visit or where they hire out copying services – has kept a record on its hard drive of everything you’ve copied. And that photocopiers are rarely owned but usually hired. And that they are routinely returned to base, renovated and hired out to new customers.

And ask yourself – if I was an identity fraudster, what would I do? Why – I’d hire a series of reconditioned photocpiers and download all the information on their hard drives, that’s what! Because remember, that while a few fraudsters may have known about this situation in the past, they’ll all know by now!

So my message today is – beware the photocopier. Wherever you work, alert those responsible for the office equipment so that they can take appropriate steps to disable the photocopiers’ hard drives. Make a fuss.

Visit www.creditreportadvice.co.uk for more information about identity fraud and how to get a copy of your credit report. Because the best way to check that your credit history is safe is to check your credit report. And if there is anything wrong with the information on that report, then there is someone at CreditReportAdvice ready to help you quickly put things right and give you one-to-one advice.

Maximise your chances of getting that mortgage

Once bitten by the credit crunch, lenders are twice shy about granting big loans

NO matter who wins on 6 May, first-time buyers are still likely to find it difficult to get mortgages, despite Alistair Darling’s pre-election gift of a two-year stamp duty holiday on property up to £250,000.

There’s no guarantee that current low interest rates will hang around for much longer. And no measures by any new government, of whatever colour, are going to quickly change the fact that banks and other lenders are being ever more careful to check that people can really afford the mortgage they want and are definitely likely to repay.

The way they do this, as well as looking at your income, is by checking your credit report. Anyone looking for a mortgage, or any other loan come to that, should make sure the information on their credit report is accurate and up to date before putting in that important application.

A new, independent service, CreditReportAdvice, has been set up to demystify the complex and often confusing world of credit reports – and to help you sort out any problems quickly with professional, friendly and personal help before you apply for important finance.

Founder and Director Helen Lord spent more than 20 years working with consumers at leading credit reference agency Experian and understands the frustrations people face when trying to resolve credit report issues.

“Getting hold of your credit report is the easy bit,” says Lord. “What people then want is professional, personal and prompt service to deal with any queries they have. They want any inaccuracies on their report to be put right quickly. This is often the difficult part and it’s where we come in!

“We take all the pain away, working with consumers to get straight to the heart of their problem. We know exactly who to contact and how best to get things put right with the minimum amount of stress and fuss.

“We don’t produce credit reports – that’s the job of the credit reference agencies and we are completely independent from all of them – so we can concentrate on what really matters to people: having an accurate credit report which they fully understand.

“And if all you want is to learn what sort of information is held about you and how it is used, then we provide loads of free information on our website www.creditreportadvice.co.uk.”

Lord’s new venture is supported by consumer credit and debt pundit Jill Stevens.

Stevens says: “Many people looking to buy a home, particularly first timers, are having difficulty getting mortgages at the moment – partly because of the stricter criteria banks are now using to ‘rate’ applications.

“This new service will help people make sure that all the credit reference agencies hold information about them that is complete, correct and reflects their true credit history. I’ve always advised consumers to make these checks before applying for credit because having your ducks in a row might make the difference between a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’.

“It’s worth remembering, too, that the information on your credit report may be used for many things other than loan applications – for example, to confirm your identity when you use the internet, or to check your creditworthiness when you rent a flat.”

Says Lord: “At CreditReportAdvice we help you get a copy of your report from every credit reference agency and help you understand what the information means, for free. If things aren’t as they should be, for a fee you receive expert, impartial, one-to-one, prompt and friendly help from one of our advisers, all of whom have had many years’ experience dealing with credit report queries and who understand the frustrations you are probably feeling.

“We provide help and analysis of your credit report by email or, if you want personal contact, by phone – and you speak to a real person, not an automated system!”

Stealing your identity

THERE’S an email doing the rounds at the moment warning people about thieves who drill a hole in the car door to break in and then steal useful documents – or whatever they can find – without making a mess and leaving valuable items so you don’t realise the car’s been broken into.

It seems a bit far fetched. I think I might notice a bullet-sized hole under my car door handle. But even if this is one of those peculiar emails that get circulated warning of us things that aren’t happening, then it’s still worth remembering why you should keep your wallet and other personal information safe.

Thieves often strike lucky in cars – and if they leave the satnav and the car stereo-radio, you can be sure that the things they have taken are worth a lot more than some electronic equipment; if you leave your driving documents in the glove compartment, as many people do, what they’re stealing is your identity.

Identity fraudsters are careful not to alert you to the loss of personal information, whether they’re stealing from your car, your home or your office. So they’ll often take a couple of pages of a document, or a cheque from the middle of the cheque book, and leave things looking okay. This gives them time to follow the clues they’ve stolen and find out more about you. With knowledge of the car you drive, your car insurance details,  your name and address, they may well be able to find enough to put together a credible application for credit. And once they’ve set up one account, they can set up more.

You may not know you’ve been a victim of identity fraud until a lender chases you for a debt – it’ll probably be a big one and it won’t be the only one. Experts say the best way to ensure you know what credit accounts are opened in your name is to check your credit report.

The person who has launched www.creditreportadvice.co.uk is one of the country’s most informed experts on identity fraud. She’s advised all manner of organisations, including government departments and the police, about how consumers can be protected from this menace and how they can protect themselve. All of us have years of experience of helping people who have been victims of fraud.

There is lots of free information at www.creditreportadvice.co.uk on how to understand the information on your credit report and how to spot identity fraud. And if you are worried you can sign up for a one-to-one personal service which will answer all your questions and get you out of any muddle an identity fraudster might have left you in.

So keep an eye open for a small hole in your car door! More importantly, keep all your personal information like credit cards and bank statements, insurance documents, passport and driving licence in a very safe place and shred documents, never just throw them away. And check your credit report to make sure nobody has made off with your credit identity.

What’s the score?

Hopefully people will visit this blog with their ideas and opinions. One thing that often generates a lot of discussion is Scoring – the  method banks and other lenders use to decide whether or not you’re creditworthy. There is understandably considerable secrecy surrounding this – because the financial organisations don’t want their competitors to know what financial risks they are taking. They also say that if they give too much away it can help identity fraudsters.

Well, all that’s as may be, but we think that people should have a good idea of how the information on their credit report is ‘scored’ or ‘rated’ and what information is going to help them get a better score, too. We’re not suggesting that the information can be tampered with, but we are saying there are ways of making sure your credit report is up to date.

For example, if you have a load of dormant credit card accounts, ones that you don’t use and are never likely to use, it’s best to close them down.  Lots of cards in your name mean you have lots of credit available to you, so if you apply for another card the lender may think you’ve already got enough credit and may turn you down. This can be very annoying if you’re applying for a card for a specific reason – because it gives Airmiles, for example, or has a good cashback deal.

There is much more advice about scoring on the website at htpp://www.creditreportadvice.co.uk.

Has anybody had any bad experiences in this area? We’ve heard about people applying for credit at a good rate but being offered it at a worse one, because they have  not been given a very good credit score. Has that happened to you? Share your experience with us  and it might help others.