I just got the privacy policy from the credit expert experian website.....DATA PROTECTION ACT???? MY BOTTOM!!!!! look at this...

Privacy policy
Who are we?

Experian Limited is part of a group of companies, whose parent company is Experian plc which is listed on the London Stock Exchange (EXPN). For more information, visit the Experian group´s website on www.experiangroup.com. The Experian group of companies has its corporate headquarters in Dublin, Ireland, and operational headquarters in Costa Mesa, California and Nottingham, UK. References to ‘Experian´ in this privacy policy are to Experian Limited.

The word “EXPERIAN”, and the square and dots graphical device in respect of Experian and "CreditExpert" are trade marks of Experian Limited and/or its associated companies and may be registered in the EU, USA and other countries. The square and dots graphical device is a registered Community design in the EU. All rights reserved.

Experian is responsible for the processing of any personal information you provide to this site and is registered in the United Kingdom under the UK Data Protection Act 1998.

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What is our commitment to you?

While information is the foundation for providing you with superior service, protecting the privacy of your personal information is of highest importance to us. We believe that responsible stewardship of the information entrusted to us is crucial in developing and maintaining the public trust essential for our continued success. We are sensitive to your privacy concerns, and are committed to letting you know what information is being collected on our web sites, how the information is being used and what choices you have regarding the collection and use of the information.

All information supplied by you to this on-line website and in application(s) will be used and protected by us in accordance with current data protection law and this Privacy Policy. This Privacy Policy does not apply to any other products and services offered through other channels.

Please take a moment to review our privacy policy and feel free to contact us with any questions at privacy AT creditexpert.co.uk.

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What types of information do we collect about you and how do we use or share this information?

The primary reason we collect personal and credit information about you is to provide products and services that you have requested and to enrol you into our membership services. The type of information we collect, and the primary purpose for which it is collected includes:

Required product registration information such as name, address(es), and date of birth, are utilised to establish your membership or one-time transaction record and to verify your identify. We require this verification in order to provide you with your personal credit information. For security reasons and to protect the confidentiality of your information, we will verify your identity by checking details you supply against details about you held on other databases to which we have access for these purposes. A record of this check will be kept and, with your consent, may be used by other organisations for verification and fraud prevention purposes;

Credit information we receive from credit reporting agencies is utilised to provide you with the products and services we offer;

Billing information, such as credit card (or other payment card) number, is required to process the payment for the products and services you order from us;

Other information we collect, such as place of birth and mother's maiden name, is used to verify your identity in the event you forget your CreditExpert monitoring service identification or password required for our CreditExpert monitoring service.

Your Alerts: As a CreditExpert member we will alert you to significant changes to your credit report via e-mail. When you initially register with CreditExpert you can choose to receive alerts by text message (SMS) if you prefer. As a member, you can update these preferences in the ‘Update my details´ section of your member centre.

Your Experian Credit Score: As a CreditExpert member you may request your Experian Credit Score based upon the information held on your Experian credit report. With your consent, this score may be used to help match you to lenders offering goods and services based upon your credit history and the profile that these lenders are looking for.

Any additional credit information you provide to us including (but not limited to) aliases, previous names and addresses and financial relationships with third parties will be added and recorded on your credit report and may be used by us to provide credit reports about you to authorised third parties.

If we are unable to verify your identity from the information you provide to us on this web site we will advise you by e-mail to the e-mail address you specify and you may then wish to make a written application including further proof of identification.

In addition to the primary purposes listed above we may also use the information we collect about you as set out in the section entitled "DO WE SHARE INFORMATION WITH THIRD PARTIES" below or for other authorised secondary purposes such as:

Creating a profile about you so that we can better inform you and others about particular goods, services or events that may be of interest to you/them and to display that information according to your/their preferences.

Dealing with your requests and enquiries.

Maintaining our records and for other administrative purposes.

Carrying out customer and market/marketing research.

Tracking activity on our website.

Protecting our websites and systems against unauthorised access.

Improving the quality of our service.

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What is our commitment to you?

We may disclose any of the information that we collect to other companies within Experian's group of companies and to those third parties referred to above in the section. Except as provided below, we do not share information with any other third party.

When identifying methods of improving our products and services or if we think a product may be of interest to you, we may arrange to extend offers of goods or services to you.

In addition, we may disclose all of the information we collect, as described above, to companies that perform services on our behalf such as credit card processors, data management firms or call centre providers and data may be hosted outside the European Economic Area by such companies.

We may use third-party advertising companies to serve advertisements about our products and services on our behalf.

We will check your details with the records we hold and share with fraud prevention agencies. If false or inaccurate information is provided and fraud is identified, we will record this and details will be passed to the other fraud prevention agencies. Law enforcement agencies may access and use this information.

We and other organisations may also access and use this information to prevent fraud and money laundering, for example, when:

Checking details on applications for credit and credit related or other facilities.

Managing credit and credit related accounts or facilities.

Recovering debt.

Checking details on proposals and claims for all types of insurance

Checking details of job applicants and employees

Please contact us at Experian Ltd, PO Box 8000, Nottingham, NG80 7WF if you want to receive details of the fraud prevention agencies.

We and other organisations may access and use from other countries the information recorded by fraud prevention agencies.

This web site may contain links for other offers and services that we feel you may have an interest in. We believe these sites share a similar commitment to consumer privacy and urge you to review their privacy policy when visiting their sites. We cannot, however, be responsible for their privacy and data use practices.

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Cookies

Cookies and similar devices such as web bugs may be used by us to provide you with information from our web site. A cookie is an element of data that a web site can send to your browser, which may then store it on your system. We use cookies to help us understand volumes of visitors looking at particular web pages and advertisements to help us determine how frequently particular pages are visited and to determine the most popular areas of our web site. Cookies may also allow us to make our web site more stable so that we can give you a better and more user friendly experience when you return to our web site, for example, allowing us to save your password so that you do not have to re-enter it every time you visit our web site. We do not use cookies to record other information on individuals. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies. You do not have to accept cookies and you should read the information that came with your browser software to see how you can set up your browser to notify you when you receive cookies, this will give you the opportunity to decide whether to accept it. If you chose to disable cookies you may not be able to access certain features of a particular web site.

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Marketing options

We will tell you about significant changes to your credit report, credit-related news, and member offers. YOU WILL ONLY RECEIVE COMMUNICATIONS FROM EXPERIAN. All of our communications will give you the opportunity to unsubscribe.

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How do we protect your information?

We restrict access to your personal data to those employees, and third parties, who need to know that information to provide products or services to you. We maintain physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards to protect your personal data.

Experian protects your information over the Internet by using secure web server technologies, which allows web browser programs (Netscape or Microsoft Internet Explorer) to interact with Experian's web server via an encrypted session. Experian employs a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) connection that provides an encrypted connection between your computer and Experian. The 128 bit encrypted connection scrambles ordinary text or data into cyphertext to safeguard sensitive information during its journey across the Internet. The information is decrypted, or put back into a readable format, when it reaches its intended destination. When you visit the CreditExpert Web site you may move in and out of secured areas. Any time that you are on a registration page or viewing your personal credit report, you will be in a secured area.

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Privacy policy changes

Our Privacy Policy will be reviewed and enhanced from time to time and you should check this page regularly to see our most up to date policy. If necessary we will inform you and obtain your consent about any significant changes to the policy.

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Data Transfers

Because we operate throughout the world in providing our goods and services, this may involve us transferring your personal information to countries whose data protection laws do not provide the same level of protection as those in the UK. If we do so, we will ensure that an agreement is in place in which anyone to whom we pass the information agrees to treat it with the same level of protection as if we were dealing with it.

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Third Parties

We may supplement the information that you provide to us with information that we receive from third parties.

We will also disclose your information to anti fraud agencies who search details about you with your consent; where required to do so by law.

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Do we share information with Third Parties?

We may disclose any of the information that we collect to other companies within the Group and to those third parties referred to above in the section. Except as provided below, we do not share information with any other third party.

When identifying methods of improving our products and services or if we think a product may be of interest to you, we may arrange to extend offers of goods or services to you.

We may also wish to pass your contact details to other selected organisations outside of the Group with whom we have a business relationship and which may wish to contact you about goods, services and events in which you may be interested. You will not receive such marketing unless you agree to do so.

In addition, we may disclose all of the information we collect, as described above, to companies that perform services on our behalf such as credit card processors, data management firms or call centre providers and data may be hosted outside the European Economic Area by such companies.

We may use third-party advertising companies to serve advertisements about our products and services on our behalf.

We will check your details with the records we hold and with other fraud prevention agencies. If you provide false or inaccurate information and we suspect fraud, we will record this. Other organisations may use and search these records to:

Help make decisions about credit and credit related services, for you and members of your household

Help make decisions on motor, household, credit, life and other insurance proposals and insurance claims, for you and members of your household

Trace debtors, recover debt, prevent fraud, and to manage your accounts or insurance policies

Check your identity to prevent money laundering, unless you provide other satisfactory proof of identity.

This web site may contain links for other offers and services that we feel you may have an interest in. We believe these sites share a similar commitment to consumer privacy and urge you to review their privacy policy when visiting their sites. We cannot, however, be responsible for their privacy and data use practices.

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Your rights to access your personal information

You have the right to receive information about the personal data we hold about you (for which we may charge a small fee). The statutory fee is £10.00, except in the case of obtaining a copy of your credit report, for which the statutory fee is £2.00.

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Dear Jenin6

I have reported this matter and Rewards Now (or whatever they call themselves) to the Financial Ombudsman as the respondents to this thread can't all be mistaken. Credit Expert, for their part, need to acknowledge there is a problem.

Regards,

Farfrae

Hi there,
I registered to the website quickcreditscore.co.uk for checking my credit report. there was time of 30 days of free period. once I registered all my details i hadn't received any confirmation from them. After that i tried to contact the no. but found no reply. later i emailed them for cancellation but again hadn't got reply.
anyway, after a week my a/c was debited with £19.95 with the name of REWARDSNOW.CO.UK. Then I started research on it online, I found that the QUICKCREDITSCORE.CO.UK and REWARDSNOW.CO.UK are registered at the same address and emails and both are entirely different sites.Just put a glance on both sites and there contact addresses.

QUICKCREDITSCORE.CO.UK REWARDSNOW.CO.UK
Quick Credit Score REWARDS NOW
PO BOX 587 PO BOX 587
Edgware, HA8 4DX Edgware, HA8 4DX
United Kingdom United Kingdom
contact AT quickcreditscore.co.uk contact AT rewardsnow.co.uk

I am not only the victum there are alot of others aswell. But nobody knows what to do to save others where should we complain.

rnf

I have received a holding response from the FO and will post summary of full response as soon as received. Consumer WatchDog, as a contributor has suggested, is a possibility. I did contact the Guardian, but Capital Letters, inundated as it is with often bigger tales of fraud, sadly did not pursue the matter.

rnf:

Its a disgrace that this can happen. I hope you are successful with your complaint.

A few suggestions. Whenever a credit or debit card recurring transaction is made I believe it is Visa/Mastercard rules that it must be possible to cancel using the channel you used to make the agreement. So if online, you should be able to cancel online. If that facility is not provided, contact your card company. They will probably deny responsibility, no matter, raise a seperate complaint regarding that specific issue with your card company. After 8 weeks you will be able to take the card company to the Financial Ombudsman Service on that specific isssue.

Regarding access to your credit report, remember that you can obtain a £2 statutory report. Alternatively, if you go direct to the Experian Credit Expert site, there is a genuine 30 day offer with a 0800 cancellation number which I know is answered quickly. The only thing you have to avoid is accidently pressing the credit score button because that costs.

Incidently the "Quick Credit Score" is provided by Call Credit not Experian or Equifax.

I can't believe this! I have had 2 payments of about £25 from quickcreditscore.co.uk and 1 of about £25 from rewardsnow.co.uk. This has messed up my account, I didn't have the money in for my phone bill as a result and the DD was returned causing a bank charge! I am so angry with this company. I have sent angry emails to both of the contact emails (thanks for posting them!). Other than that I don't know what to do for now? Are they gonna steal more money off me? How can I stop the payments? What should I do. I am only earning £450 a month and this is ALL ACCOUNTED FOR with rent, bills, food. So I can't afford any of these payments they will ruin me! What shall I do? Any help much appreciated! They need to be taken down! Cheers, Oli

Oli

I sympathise entirely. I would telephone Rewards Now (I personally had no difficulty contacting them) and certainly send them written instruction by post to stop making debits. Retain a copy.

PO BOX 587, Edgware, HA8 4DX T: 0845 026 1098

All the best,

Farfrae

I managed to stop any money from being taken from my account without any problems using a belt and braces approach. Fortunately I smelt a rat in time, so I called my credit card company and put a block on the payments. Then I signed into the sites using the membership number and details that they sent to my e-mail address and followed the links to cancel the account. Next I e-mail them to the addresses below. Finally I phoned them and followed the instructions given which were quite clear. I did all this within the 7 days and was not charged.

"If within 7 day you don't feel that our services and benefits are everything we say they are, simply call us at 0845 026 1092 or email us at membersavings AT highcreditscore.co.uk to cancel your membership."

"If within 10 day you don't feel that our services and benefits are everything we say they are, simply call us at 0845 026 1098 or email us at membersavings AT rewardsnow.co.uk to cancel your membership."

I received polite e-mails confirming my cancellation.

One approach might be to complain to Yahoo! who are placing the adverts on their user e-mail pages. They have an obligation to their users and the public at large. Another might be to complain to the Building Society mentioned in the smallprint, and who own the credit agency who provide the data to them. Alternatively you could complain to Trading Standards.

Good luck

windbreaker:

I called my credit card company and put a block on the payments.

That's clever, on what grounds did they agree?

The adviser said that she had made a similar mistake herself, and understood the problem. She said to retain the cancellation e-mails in case of problems. Having told them, and retained the proof of cancellation they said they would not honour payment.

I have found this approach to work well with other issues, and it is always worth contacting the credit card supplier as it is their reputation at stake too.

windbreaker:

That's right, but that's not the order described in your first post which gave the CCC no grounds for not honouring the debit.

That's said, you did everything right. Well done.

Any interested correspondents will remember that I reported Rewards Now, Highcreditscore and quickcreditscore to this service, and included accounts of others caught out by the sharp practices of these Edgware outfits. I have finally received a response, and to call it unsatisfactory would be an understatement. The FO say they will not deal with it...

'because we can only consider complaints about activities or services provided by firms that are regulated by the Financial Services Authority or that have agreed voluntaily to be covered by the [Ombudsman] or services provided by businesses that are licensed by the OFT for Consumer Credit purposes. Unfortunately [these three companies] do not belong to this group according to our database.'

So there we have it. What amounts to a voluntary code for companies and a Pontius Pilate shrug of the shoulders from the regulators. It them over a month to tell me that the companies I had first written about and concerning which I'd then been sent and returned a detailed form fell outside their jurisdiction.

It is no wonder that shark companies like this are thriving if this is the kind of impotence one is faced with - by the very authorities that consumers would naturally look to for help: Rewards Now & co must be laughing all the way to the bank accounts they keep robbing, given the FO's demonstable toothlessness.

I will, as someone mentioned, try to raise the matter with Consumer Watchdog (and would encourage others to do the same, rather than wasting their time with this 'service'), but, really, it is no wonder that this kind of sorry tale continues. Monitor your bank accounts continuously, watch your computer interface and don't let these characters steal from you. Nobody else will help.

Farfrae

Farfrae:

Any interested correspondents will remember that I reported Rewards Now, Highcreditscore and quickcreditscore to this service, and included accounts of others caught out by the sharp practices of these Edgware outfits.

I share you frustration about the abject failure of regulation in this country.

It would be laughable if wasn't so tragic for people affected, but despite the minutest recording of our credit histories, when the banks lost all our money on bad credit it wasn't actually people with the worst credit reference agency rating that were responsible for the losses. And somewhere in the background the regulator was sleeping.

Regarding the "free" credit report offers, go direct to the CRA website and not via a referral website and based on my recent experience it's "free" and easy to cancel, either a free call or a posted question. The best way to deal with the referral sites you have identified is for everybody to deal direct with Experian or Equifax.

Hi

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for looking into all this information, however unhelpful the out come was. I rang rewards now and they told me if i emailed the head office before cancelling my subscription, i would get a full refund. I done this and (obviously as predicated) it was all a load of LIES!!!!! I dont think we will ever get out of this or get any kind of compensation but I will also be writing to consumer watchdog!!

Jenin6

Send an e-mail to membersavings AT rewardsnow.co.uk stating that you confirm your phone call and wish to cancel. Print off the e-mail. Ring your credit card company customer services who's number will be on the back of yourcard and explain that you have cancelled the payment and they are not to pay rewardsnow. Tell them you have a copy of the e-mail confirming the cancellation, and if asked then post it to them. If all that fails then cancel the credit card.