I have this problem with my account currently. I will say it's not the only reason because I do have a late payment.

When I was after a new car last june I went to 2 different garages and applied for an AA loan. From these garage passing on for a quote for how much I could borrow and AA passing me onto different companys I ended up with 15 different search on my account in the space of 2 days. Now if I was lending to someone I possible see that as desperate given the amount of search and the short time frame and the fact I took none of the offers. However the simple fact is I only actually applied for one loan directly the rest were done on my behalf by the garages and finally decided to buy a cheap car and borrow the money of family.

I like the idea of locking you account against search because in my case the garages wouldn't have been able to do the search and I could have opened it up for the AA. Although still would have had a few search from the AA and it partners. What I don't understand though is why don't company who refer you also pass on your credit rating details.