The Legal Bit

Terms & Conditions of Use

1. Use of this website is subject to your agreement to be bound by English law and to these terms and conditions. Your statutory rights are not affected.
2. Credit file searches leave a search footprint both in our records and at the credit reference agencies we search. These are for your protection so that you may see who has been searching your credit file.
3. You agree to appoint Credit Reporting Agency Limited as your attorney for the specific purposes of the exercising of your statutory rights to obtain details of information held about you at a credit reference agency.
4. If you subscribe to any of our optional subscription services, (such as our Premium Annual or Monthly subscription service) you further authorise us until further notice to charge your credit card (the card you used for your initial payment) the renewal subscription at each appropriate interval after your initial purchase. In the event that the monthly or annual fee is not paid for any reason, we shall notify you by email that our attempts to obtain payment have failed and we shall make further attempts to obtain payment of the fee at regular intervals. During this period, any refreshes of your credit report will be suspended. Once a successful payment attempt has been made, we will obtain your credit report, make it available for you to view and resume attempts to obtain monthly or annual payments thereafter.
5. Payments made for our online Premium services and for the initial setup fee are not refundable. This is because the credit reports that are used for both purposes are delivered to us immediately and prepared on an individually personalised basis for you at the time of your order. The supply of such services fall within the exemption to the right to cancel as defined in clause 13(1)c of The Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000.
6. We purchase information which is compiled within your credit file from other companies ('our suppliers'). We, together with our suppliers, agents and employees, take no responsibility for the contents of a credit file, its completeness or its usefulness. Our suppliers and we will take care to exercise reasonable skill in providing accurate information to you. The information supplied to you is provided to our suppliers and us from other companies whose accuracy we do not control or influence. We do not limit nor exclude any liability we may have to you for death or personal injury caused by negligence. In any other instance you agree that our liability to you is limited to £2.
7. You agree that you will not hold us, our employees, or any of our suppliers liable for any direct or indirect damages, costs, losses or expenses of any nature resulting from the use or misuse of the information delivered by us. You agree not to hold our suppliers liable for any delay in delivery or if we fail to supply you or if we omit any information for any reason. You agree to indemnify and keep indemnified us, our employees and agents and our suppliers against any claim or action made against them for any losses damages costs or other expenses in connection with your use of our services.
8. You agree that you will not use any of the information we provide to you including credit scores as the sole basis for any decision you may make nor use the information provided in any way that might be detrimental to us or to our suppliers. You acknowledge that a credit report from us is not the same as the file you would receive if you exercise your statutory rights to obtain a copy of your credit file from any credit reference agency at any time upon payment of the statutory fee of £2. Further details about credit files generally can be found in the Information Commissioner's publication 'Credit Explained'.
9. We take substantial steps to protect the privacy of an individual when providing information over the Internet. You acknowledge and understand that there is always a remote possibility that criminal actions may result in unauthorised access to credit files. We take no responsibility if confidential information is unlawfully intercepted, hacked or stolen and subsequently disclosed. You agree that you will not disclose your password and user name to any one at any time. You agree that you will not distribute or make available any information supplied by us to any third party. If you become aware of any unauthorised use of our services, you agree to inform us immediately in order that steps may be taken to protect confidential information.
10. We have installed security devices and follow procedures that are designed to prevent unlawful access to information. From time to time we may have to temporarily suspend access to our services to enable us to protect this information. You agree that we may terminate supply of information to you at any time and without notice and for any reason that we will not disclose or discuss.
11. We depend upon our suppliers to provide information to us on demand. This means that when any of these are unable to provide information to us, we are not able to continue to provide an immediate service to you. We will always use our best efforts to supply information but we can give no assurance on the continuing availability of any or all of our services.
12. We continually try to improve the services we offer and may change the contents of credit files, this web site, the suppliers of information and any other aspect of our products and services without notice.
13. For your convenience, we provide links to other sites on our website. We have no control over the content of the linked web sites and assume no liability or responsibility for their accuracy, completeness or otherwise.
14. We give general advice on matters relating to credit information matters and in particular on how to fix errors found on credit files. We can give no warranty that our advice is correct in every detail and that all errors will be successfully removed, as we may not know all the facts and amendments to information databases are always at the discretion of the ultimate owner, and not us. We do not recommend, either expressly or by implication, any particular lender or credit provider. We are not a Credit Intermediary within the meaning of the Consumer Credit Act. We present to you with the facts to enable you to make a more informed decision. Those facts include the features of each credit product, whether your credit score indicates that typically you will be accepted, and how our other customers have rated each credit provider in terms of customer satisfaction.
15. We provide credit scores with some credit files. The method of calculation of credit scores is a commercial secret and is not disclosed. We make no warranty and take no responsibility for the accuracy, relevance or otherwise of credit scores.
16. In the event of any dispute between us regarding the interpretation of these terms and conditions or the rights and obligations of either of us, as an alternative to any right you may have to take legal proceedings in England, you may choose to submit the dispute either to the arbitration of two parties (one selected by you and one selected by us) or to a mutually agreed umpire in accordance with the Arbitration Act 1996 or any subsequent amendment to that law.
17. Once the one-off setup fee has been paid, annual credit reports from annualcreditreport.co.uk are free subject to your agreement to receive regular emails from us and also subject to us being able to continue to recover the costs of providing credit reports from the commissions paid to us by lenders. You are asked to make full use of our lender matching services to enable us to continue to make the free credit report service available. You may opt out of receiving emails at any time although this will make you ineligible to receive free credit reports in the future and you will no longer have access to any existing credit reports. No refund will be made in respect of the setup fee in the event that you opt out of receiving emails, or in the event that we terminate the provision of free credit reports at any time.
18. If you subscribe to our Identity Theft Protection Service, we will use all reasonable endeavours to assist you to restore your identity and to correct your credit files, but only if the fraud occurred after commencement of your subscription. The service is intended to assist victims who fall victim to identity theft after having subscribed to the service. It is not a restoration service for those who have already fallen victim, because, if it were, then the cost would be substantially more. No assistance can be given to subscribers for identity frauds which are committed prior to the date of first subscription to the Identity Theft Protection Service.
19. If you require additional information on your credit report which incurs additional costs for us, we will charge you accordingly in accordance with our published tariff. The service is intended to be automated and online help is designed to answer most queries without the need for contacting us. If you need to telephone us, your call will be charged at the rate published. In the event that you do not pay us for any reason including the failure by your bank to pay a cheque issued to us, or the action of you charging back a credit card or debit card transaction for any reason, you agree that we may record details at a credit reference agency (which may or may not include us, as we are a registered credit reference agency ourselves) together with your name and address and date of birth details, so that we and other organisations who search that credit reference agency may use such information for the purposes of payment risk assessment, money laundering and fraud prevention. The sharing of information in this way helps to reduce bad debts and credit fraud.
20. You agree without reservation that we may provide information about your use of our services to the Office of the Information Commissioner, the Office of Fair Trading, the Police and to our suppliers. We may also be required to reveal information about you or credit files under compulsion of law, Court Order or by agreement of you and us.
21. International Access - The offer of free annual credit reports applies only to UK citizens who are currently resident in the UK. We operate this website from Chynoweth House, Trevissome Park, Blackwater, Truro, Cornwall, TR4 8UN England. If you are not accessing the website from England or Wales, the laws that apply to your country may well differ. In accessing this website, you agree that these terms and conditions and your use of this website shall be governed in all respect by the laws of England, without regard to conflict of laws or other regulation and in particular shall not be governed by the United Nations Convention on the International Sale of Goods. You further submit to exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England for all disputes, cases and controversies regarding this website, your use of this website and your relationship with us, subject only to your option to use the dispute resolution process set out in clause 14 above. We make no representation that materials on this website are appropriate or available for use in other locations. Accessing this website from territories where the content is illegal or unlawful is prohibited. If you choose to access this website from other locations then you agree that you do so entirely at your own risk and that you are responsible for compliance with local laws including any laws regarding the transmission of data exported either from England or from the country in which you reside, or from the country you are in when you access the website.

Complaint?

If you wish to make a complaint, please email us. Our complaints policy is that:

• We will acknowledge your complaint usually within 24 hours and always within 2 working days.
• We will deal with it confidentially.
• We aim to provide a fair response within 5 working days.
• If your complaint requires detailed investigation we will keep you advised regularly by email of the progress we have made.
• If you are unhappy with our response, you can appeal to our Joint Managing Directors for a personal review of your complaint, by writing to us at Credit Reporting Agency Limited, Chynoweth House, Trevissome Park, Truro, Cornwall, TR4 8UN
• If your complaint is still not resolved after following the above steps, you are entitled to refer it to the Financial Ombudsman Service.