Credit Reference Agency S.A.R only £2 not £10

[biggeorge]

Hi Guys,

 

Been on here a while learning all the time and have just come across this on the ICO website while looking at Subject Access Requests.

 

Unless there is an updated version I'm taking it as correct and legal.

 

 

Glossary of terms - ICO

 

 

The link is current so should be classed as valid and I have just sent in a complaint to the Information Commissioners Office against Equifax over this as they have returned my Subject Access Request claiming not enough fee paid.

 

They are now also late as 7 days has now passed and according to the details at the link Credit Reference Agencies only have 7 days to supply the data.

 

Hope this helps those getting the Subject Access Requests in,

Could save a few quid and better than the £10.

 

Going to send in Subject Access Requests to other Credit Reference Agencies now but include this link so they can't claim not enough fee paid.

 

George

 

[Allwood]

I paid Equifax £10 for mine but I never got a refund from them of £8 do they own that money to me now....

[spark1]

I thought it was £2 for a Credit Report which should be sent within 7 days ?

 

And £10 for Subject Access Request which should be sent within 40 days ?

[biggeorge]

Here is what it says at the link:

 

The part regarding Credit Reference Agency I have moved to a separate part in the middle.

 

Say its all for me there. £2 and 7 days to send.

 

If anyone has paid £10 I'd be asking for a refund and making a complaint to the ICO over the Credit Reference Agency over charging.

 

S

 

Subject access request (Data Protection Act) Under the Data Protection Act, individuals can ask to see the information about themselves that is held on computer and in some paper records. If an individual wants to exercise this subject access right, they should write to the person or organisation that they believe is processing the data.

A subject access request must be made in writing and must be accompanied by the appropriate fee. In most cases, the maximum fee will be £10, but this can vary, particularly if the information requested is for health or educational records.

 

 

If a subject access request is made to a credit reference agency, then the fee is £2, and the information must be provided within seven working days.

 

 

 

A request must include enough information to enable the person or organisation to whom the subject is writing to satisfy itself as to their identity and to find the information.

A reply must be received within 40 days as long as the necessary fee has been paid. A data controller should act promptly in requesting the fee or any further information necessary to fulfil the request. If a data controller is not processing personal information of which this individual is the data subject, the data controller must reply saying so.

[Allwood]

Not only did I pay £10 but I had to wait months for them to send me anything.

 

I have just found the receipt for this payment from the post office and am sending this to ICO along with my reference number for the electoral register that Equifax says that I am not registered. Also the are in the dog house about not removing the dispute notice despite receiving a letter from them saying that this had been removed 2 years ago.

Edited September 8, 2009 by Allwood

[Mike220359]

They will do anything they want and only pay lip service to your rights until you take them to court - at the end of the day, this is an unregulated industry which is looked over by the ICO which really does nothing to the big fish

[Allwood]

I agree, they can do what they like with the blessing of the ICO and the government, but if we all complain about them and there is a general election coming up next year perhaps something will be done about all these unregulated CRA's in our small country. These organisations simply rules whether we get a home or a job as they are the first organisations that are contacted by the lenders and now employers as well....:-x:-x

[Allwood]

I also have a copy of Equifax front page of SAR....they are contradicting themselves as on the front page of the SAR it says date of request of SAR was on 11 April 09, and the Legal Deadline 20 May 09.

 

On the next page it has a copy of my initial letter requesting the SAR dated 17 February 09.

 

It is very worrying that a company like this has all our data....

[volvo]

The £2 fee is only for a copy of your credit file, wheras the £10 SAR fee is for full disclosure of all information they hold on you

 

VOLVO

[Allwood]

This is the relevant extract from the ICO

 

"Subject access request (Data Protection Act) Under the Data Protection Act, individuals can ask to see the information about themselves that is held on computer and in some paper records. If an individual wants to exercise this subject access right, they should write to the person or organisation that they believe is processing the data.

 

A subject access request must be made in writing and must be accompanied by the appropriate fee. In most cases, the maximum fee will be £10, but this can vary, particularly if the information requested is for health or educational records. If a subject access request is made to a credit reference agency, then the fee is £2, and the information must be provided within seven working days.

 

A request must include enough information to enable the person or organisation to whom the subject is writing to satisfy itself as to their identity and to find the information.

 

A reply must be received within 40 days as long as the necessary fee has been paid. A data controller should act promptly in requesting the fee or any further information necessary to fulfil the request. If a data controller is not processing personal information of which this individual is the data subject, the data controller must reply saying so."

 

I read it as if people makes a subject access request to a CRA then it is £2.00 fee.

[Apathy]

"at the end of the day, this is an unregulated industry which is looked over by the Information Commissioners Office which really does nothing to the big fish"

 

I understand that, in the absence of knowledge, human instinct is to imagine the worst but there really needs to be some common sense applied to CRAs. It doesn’t take much to find out and things would be much better if consumer anger was directed at the appropriate areas. Firstly, they are regulated by the Office of Fair Trading as they are required to hold a Consumer Credit license. There are 3 consumer CRAs in the UK but several hundred companies hold a license to act as a CRA. That the OFT do not question whether the others are CRAs despite knowing there are only 3. I guess this is a resource issue but, never the less, not very comforting.

The ICO simply have no enforcement powers they can realistically use. They do respond to complaints and will pick up any issue on which they are receiving numerous correspondences. Let’s be fair here, any loss of data is a big news story as various government department compete for title of most incompetent data controller. Have a CRA ever been reported breaching data security? The business impact of this could be severe and for this reason I trust them more than my bank, government or out of season clothing shop when it comes to personal data.

A CRA only holds financial data from all providers in a central location. It is not responsible for the detail within the records as these are created by the lender and simply loaded into a CRA database. The control of this data is self-regulated but, before you scoff at the premise, bear in mind that Barclays do not willingly share their customer financial performance data with HSBC but do so because both parties benefit. To prevent each other stealing customers, rules are determined and enforced by the lenders (e.g. cannot be used for marketing). This is purely for commercial reasons but does also offer reasonable protection to consumers. The point here is that CRAs are not at fault if your data is inaccurate.

All Subject Access Requests (SAR) made to any Data Controller can potential incur a cost of around £10. Under the Consumer Credit Act Section 158, there is a provision for CRAs to provide a LIMITED SAR for £2 which is basically your credit file (a full SAR would include your credit file and any other information the CRA holds on you which, unless you have worked for them or dealt directly, is not much).

Processing LSARs alone is not a profitable business for Experian which is why, I guess, they are a pain to get a request through and I don’t doubt they deliberately have a policy to put off LSAR applications. If you paid £10 for a SAR, Experian should really have helped you clarify your request resulting in an LSAR and £8 refund. A company their size simply does not suffer consequences by, in the grand scheme, failing to meet minor requirements (such is Capitlaism) when they are busy bribing and degrading the House of Lords, allegedly.

[Allwood]

Sadly it is £10 for SAR, I have sent some complains to ICO and the fee was one of them, which I was told that SAR is £10 and £2 for CRA report. The SAR was well of out of time it took about 10 weeks for them to get it out to me, but the ICO ignored that one..

 

CRA do get things wrong they ICO upheld two of my complaints one for not taking a dispute off my report when they wrote to me saying that it has been take off.

 

CRA linked me to a previous occupant of my home when she moved out before I moved here and they also had that person on the electoral register. They linked me to her under the terms of Alias Information.

 

The ICO will be educating them to make sure that they will not make mistakes like this again....LOL:rolleyes:

[araza61]

hi there,can anybody guide me to letter template that i can use for subject access request for cra.thanks

[willtheywontthey]

same here please - by the time I have edited the normal CRA SAR I have almost nothing left in letter?!