Website promises free credit reference check

 

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By Alun Williams

Posted on 1 Dec 2006 at 17:19

Not free credit, but free access to your credit status - this is the promise of annualcreditreport.co.uk and Credit Reporting Agency, the company behind the website. As well as accessing credit data the site is also intended to help check against errors on the report and guard against identity theft.

Note, however, that you will only be given annual access - in other words free access once a year.

Since 1974, and the Consumer Credit Act, everyone has had a statutory right to see what others hold about them, points out Barry Stamp, MD of Credit Reporting Agency. But getting a credit report would involve sending £2 by post to a credit reference agency and then waiting seven working days to get a paper print out. Online services are also available from agencies, but these subscription services would come at a cost.

'It's important that everyone can have regular and easy access to credit report information, so we are providing an online credit report for free every year,' he said. 'Consumers can protect themselves from the impact of errors or to guard against the increasing threat of identity theft.'

But how secure is the method of obtaining the data, given that details you need to supply include first name, middle name, surname, full postal address, date of birth and a valid email address? We asked whether this wasn't open to abuse.

'Our system is significantly more secure, when compared with obtaining your "statutory credit report" from a credit reference agency by post,' maintained the company.

It insisted it had a raft of security measures to protect consumer's data, developed over six years through its paid-for sister site checkmyfile.com. 'We also send a security code to the customer's current address by unmarked envelope, after checking that the address supplied is the one where the customer appears to be currently resident from other databases, and which must be entered in conjunction with the correct date of birth and a memorable password sent separately by email to a validated email address,' said a spokesperson. 'These measures together ensure that the correct person only can access their data, and also alerts a genuine person to anyone trying to obtain their file without their knowledge.'

The multi-section reports, which contain colour-coded rankings (red indicates a poor status poor while green indicates health), do not require you to enter credit card details.

Types of information held on the report include: credit agreements taken out, a six-year credit payment history, electoral roll information, county court judgements and fraud warning registers against UK addresses.

What's the catch? You will have to register with the site, to receive the annualcreditreport.co.uk newsletter regularly throughout the year, but the company promises this can be cancelled any time. In terms of the business model for the site, online advertising will pay for the service.

Note that the service is being rolled out region by region, starting today with the South and South-East regions.