Your UK credit report for pennies (Equifax-Experian)

A little known law in the UK allows you to get your credit report from all three major credit reference agencies for pennies.

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The agencies and service resellers have been promoting ‘FREE’ instant access to credit reports. Of course its not free — you have to agree to sign up to a monthly fee which you are stuck with unless you cancel within the trial period, sometimes as short as 10 days. In addition itappears that at least one reseller uses your personal data for unrelated marketing purposes ‘with your consent’ (it’s in the small print).

The Data Protection Act 1998 (and its predecessor, the 1984 Act) has always provided a right of access to personal data held about you.  This is called a Subject Access Request, and you can write to any organisation holding personal data (that is to say, data about living persons) and request a copy of everything they hold on you within 40 days. The Act provides that the data controller or data processor (that is to say, the organistation or person with the data) can charge you.

The law sets a statutory maximum fee. And guess what! It seems that every data controller the law applies to invariably charges the maximum fee allowed, which is ten pounds (just under 12 euros at the time of writing).

There are three major credit reference agencies in the UK. Experian, Equifax and (relative newcomer) CallCredit.

So if you filed a normal Subject Access request with all three, it would cost thirty pounds. And if you did this three or four times a year, it would be a similar cost to paying say ten pounds a month for their paid-for services.

But there’s a little known provision in the law that enables you to get your credit reports for pennies.

Long before the 1984 Act was even thought of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 introduced for the first time in Great Britain, the right of consumers to access their credit file.

At the time the Act was drafted, the credit industry in the UK was very much in its infancy.

VISA and MasterCard as we know them today didn’t exist. The only payment card accepted internationally was American Express (restricted to the sort of people who today have Platinum Amex cards)

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Before 1972 only one UK bank offered a credit card, which was called ‘Barclaycard’ . Introduced in 1996, it is a brand name which still survives today, but now as one among many VISA cards. It was very cleverly advertised, with cinema ads showing a girl equipped with a bikini and nothing else but her Barclaycard.. (Although there are plenty of other Barclaycard ads on YouTube this one doesn’t appear to have survived). In 1972 the other three of the ‘Big Four’ Banks, launched Access (which became know as ‘your flexible friend’ only to disappear into the MasterCard brand many years later). Prior to this time the only credit available to consumers were expensive ‘overdrafts’ and expensive and onerous ‘hire purchase agreements’.

With all this activity, the UK Government instituted a right to see your credit file at a minimal cost. This was contained in the Consumer Credit Act 1974.and provided that not only could you get to see your credit file for a very small fee, but also that the credit reference agencies must correct it if it was wrong.

When in 1998 the Data Protection Act was updated, this was embedded into the new Act (s.7).

So, to obtain your credit file, simply write to any or all of

• Equifax Ltd., Credit File Advice Centre, PO Box 1140, BRADFORD BD1 5US
• Experian Ltd, Consumer Help Service, P O Box 8000, NOTTINGHAM, NG80 7WF
• CallCredit Ltd, Consumer Services Team, P O Box 491 LEEDS LS3 1WZ

enclosing the statutory fee of two pounds, and stating all addresses you have lived at in the last siz years. They must then provide your full credit file within 7 days.

Sample Cover Letter

Dear Sirs,

I hereby apply for a copy of my credit reference file under the provisions of s.7 of the Data Protection Act 1998.

My current address is 23 Every St LONDON SW1 0AA

My previous addresses within the last 6 years are as follows

1 Other St LONDON W1A 4WW

I enclose the statutory fee of 2.00 and look forward to your reply within the next seven days.

Yours faithfully

Richard Mustermann