Forum Discussion

Ian921's avatar
Ian921
Joining in
4 months ago

Hard search

I have recently signed up for virgin media broadband only. Today I had an e-mail advising that a hard search has been performed on my credit file. I totally appreciate that a credit search is necessary to prevent any fraud prevention however, a soft search would a been more than sufficient. In fact anytime you make a insurance policy you pay for it in monthly which is for 10 times more expensive than a broadband contact and they only perform soft search. With Virgin Media broadband you pay IN ADVANCE before receiving the service every month. For example on January’s bill you make a payment for the service you going to use in February so there is no credit involved. This would be acceptable if I buy a mobile phone from them. I will receive the phone for £1000 and then pay for it in instalments so when I make £50 payment on January I will be still owe them £950 so I will be in credit. But when I take a broadband I don’t receive 12 moths worth a service in one time I pay for 1 month and receive 1 moth worth service and then it repeats like this so I never owe them I pay then receive what I payed for nothing extra. Now I will have a team member replying to me saying they please visit our terms and conditions here. There you can find that it states that we carry out hard search on every customer. In your term and conditions it states that you will be carrying out a “credit check” and doesn’t state “HARD” and as you are well aware they have completely different consequences. Long story short first it is not necessary to perform a hard search for a broadband contract only. Second if you are going to do it consider mentioning it clearly stating”HARD SEARCH” on your terms and conditions. Now I’m still in my cooling off period and I am cancelling my contract and after that I will take this matter to https://www.commsombudsman.org/ as I don’t want to be left with a mark on my credit score even I don’t have any connection with a company. I am in middle of a process of applying for a mortgage application and now being rejected because of a broadband service for £25 a month. Disgraceful 

  • unisoft's avatar
    unisoft
    Knows their stuff

    It's a hard search. I left in March then rejoined as new customer deal on gig1, and even though not one late payment since 2007, they did a hard search. I agree it's really bad practice as you don't have an expensive actual product, and credit limits could be set initially so buying or renting stuff doesn't acrue much if customer did it. Most of the kit has been used before too before you get it.