I am very concerned with the promotion of ‘Get Credit Score’ ads on Channel 7 where people provide their confidential personal details, in order to get their credit rating assessed, with the chance to go in a draw for $25,000.
This is promoted by none other, than Channel Seven’s presenter, 'Kochie" - David Koch.
The information you need to provide is, your Full Name, Date of Birth, Email Address, Physical Address, Mobile Phone Number, and Driver’s Licence Number.
After you have entered al your details as above, you are deemed to have agreed to the terms and conditions as stated in the following paragraph.
“I consent to being contacted by GetCreditScore, SocietyOne Australia P/L, Veda and their related entities and for them to use and disclose my personal information for business and marketing purposes. I can opt out of direct marketing by any of the above entities by contacting the entities at any time.”
I would like to warn all readers not to be sucked in with this ploy to have your personal details revealed and your security compromised.
Guess what’s going to happen? You are going to be bombarded with text messages, phone calls, and spam emails containing malware and ransom ware, just to mention a few.
I’m surprised they didn’t ask you to provide your credit card details so they can complete the trio of fraudulent activity.
David Koch should be ashamed of himself in being involved in this sort of irresponsible promotion. We should all be outraged as I am.
If you want to know your credit rating, you can apply to the credit rating agencies in your own right, without letting the world know your confidential details.
I agree with your post, but businesses have always done this and until relatively recently it just happened, no need to be up front or open. In our government’s façade of protections and privacies such corporate behaviour has become transparent.
Marketing lists are being exposed as cynical profit centres and the lists sold and resold. Auspost does it. Any company that can does it. Government sees no problem as long as we can opt out no matter how difficult or inconvenient that might be, and a dollar gets into someone’s pockets as a result.
As far as Kochie and other celebrities who “endorse” things, some of them are just too happy to tout anything that pays them to do so. They should be required to state loudly and proudly up front if they are being paid and whether or not they have used whatever they are advertising.
I totally agree with all you have said in your post!
Ignore any messages that ask for any details of a personal nature.
Hear hear!!
I totally agree with you, it is truly a Buyer Beware situation!
I too was taken for for a ride by Veda which seems to be linked to Get credit score. I had an account with them and tried to cancel it after 12 months but they were still debiting my account without permission. Not only that but I had not been able to access that account after the first month. A complete waste of time and money. These companies are holding the Australian public to ransom as they are the holders of financial information which may or may not be correct. And I agree that David Koch should be ashamed of himself.
If there are any @Finance-Campaigner’s that have experience here, we’d like to hear about it.
This stunt must qualify for the Shonky Awards.
Hi Airsie,
Couldn’t agree more. I stupidly did it after hearing about it from Effie, the editor of Money Magazine, someone I believed to offer really good advice on a range of issues. Pleased to know I got a great score but not pleased to suddenly start getting emails from randoms all over the world telling me of their plight.
It is frightening how my information can be sent all over the world, quite legally.
I checked into all this when Telstra told me I had to have a credit check to receive a $10 discount and realised that that gave myriads of companies access to my details, including those overseas. Needless to say, I don’t have the $10 discount!! And I won’t agree to a new contract with them if they insist on a credit check (which I suspect they are doing without my permission anyway, but that’s another story.)
Where is the watchdog I ask. You know, the ones who are supposed to protect us from identity theft and credit fraud etc??? Why is it that I have to opt out of having my details distributed. Why isn’t it that I have to give permission for my details to be distributed?
Let’s ask Kochie and Effie to get onto this…
April
I’ve researched the different providers of credit scores that have recently sprung up in Australia for this piece I wrote for the benefit of my own audience.
Get Credit Score is a JV between Veda themselves and peer-to-peer lender SocietyOne with each one owning a 50% share of the business.
The reason why get credit score is promoted so heavily and is paying big bucks in endorsements to celebs like Kochie is because it is essentially a lead-gen tool for SocietyOne which will approach users with high credit scores and offer them personal & car loans which may or may not be more competitive than what is offered by the banks.
There are however, other similar services who do NOT mine user’s data and who guarantee that users will NOT be contacted by lenders as a result of their use of the service to retrieve their credit score.
In order to get the credit score from Veda (a.k.a VedaScore), I recommend people use the service by Finder.com.au which has launched recently.
In order to get the credit score from Experian I suggest people use Credit Savvy.
I explain it all in full in this post.
A year or so ago, I got in touch with Veda to get my free credit score. They phoned me several times, trying to convince me to upgrade to a paid version, which I declined. They were REALLY pushy.
They also warned me (with several phone calls) that the free version will take a while. I was in no hurry, so I kept declining, but they really had trouble taking no for an answer.
When I eventually received my credit score, they listed a person at an address I have never mentioned on my credit score. From memory, even the initial was different. I had to write to them to tell them that that person had nothing to do with me. I suspect that was another attempt to get me to upgrade
They replied that they will, eventually, remove that person from my credit rating, but it will take a while. TBH, I never went back to check to see if they have, in fact, removed that person. I suppose I should.
Worth repeating…
If you want to know your credit rating, you can apply to the credit rating agencies in your own right, without letting the world know your confidential details.
Thanks for the information you have provided. Very helpful.
You make a very good point there. Companies need to get our permission BEFORE they start to sell or distribute our personal information. This should be the default position. Not the other way around. By the time you get them to opt you out of selling your private info, how many third parties have they already told. They are not going to be in any hurry to opt you out, that is, if they ever do anyway.
Veda has a spotty history of its own business practices. Although essentially an unvetted board, there is a definite trend at http://www.productreview.com.au/p/veda-advantage.html
I find it ironic that there is some outrage over collection of personal data by corporates, when a large proportion of the population freely publishes their whole lives on social media.
Some people from the internet generation seem to value their privacy very lowly as quite a bit can be found out about them by a any savvy online sleuth who would only be mining the data that people freely post.
I wouldn’t go go lauding credit Savvy just because Aussie Home Loans are behind it.
You’llfind recently that Credit Savvy Apoarently changed their ‘formula’ for measuring credit scores.
Now I who has no entries for 3 years is suddenly dropped a who category based on a formula change and NOT credit worthiness. Now Good instead of Excellent, yet Veda has me at Excellent.
Don’t worry Credit Savvy are good at bombarding you too and no better.
What good is a credit score if they move the goal posts.
Fair enough but just to clarify: Credit Savvy is a credit score retrieval service. They are NOT a credit reporting agency.
As such, they are not the ones calculating your credit score and therefore have no ‘formula’ to change or goal posts to move.
They simply give you your credit score with Experian which is one of the 3 credit reporting agencies currently operating nation-wide in Australia (there is also a 4th one operating only in Tasmania).
Any changes in your score are due to algorithm changes made by Experian. Credit Savvy have nothing to do with that.
There should be a law against being unable to cancel out of these things. Google do it with their Google Business page, Australia Post do it with MyPost and both sell your details. And Facebook, though they will take down your page, will never let you cancel it. Why?
David Koch is a presenter, he will tell you anything for money.
This should be banned. Identity theft is a major problem, and you could find yourself in serious trouble if your details fall into the wrong hands.
