Cifas Reviews 

I cannot believe this company was recommended by Martin Lewis. I am very unhappy with the service and they are impossible to get hold of to complain.. The customer service email bounces back as non accepted. The phone number (if you can find it) just leaves you hanging on with music. There is nowhere to cancel membership which is what i want to do despite all the Fill out a Form signs.The link does not exist when you click it.. If you join, CIFAS blocks you from opening accounts on trusted websites that always worked before and I have had terrible trouble with this . One building society said contact a solicitor about it! I will be going to the Financial Ombudsman instead and making a formal complaint about them and try to get any payment I made back .I cannot even cancel this .For you own benefit , do NOT join this terrible so called "protective " company. And Martin Lewis should have checked this company out before recommending it

I have completed and complained and still, heard nothing. This is a disgrace I’m nearly six years into having been deemed a fraudulent, I have been cleared from any investigation!! By Merseyside police. Life is becoming extremely difficult in a society moving forward cashless!
No faith in this society

I am deeply disappointed with CIFAS and its biased approach. It is clear that CIFAS operates in favor of financial institutions, disregarding the voices of individuals. Despite providing substantial evidence to refute unfounded allegations made by my bank, CIFAS sided with the institution without thoroughly investigating my case. This organization's lack of impartiality and disregard for individual rights is appalling. I expected a fair review process, but instead, I encountered a system that prioritizes corporate interests over justice. I do not recommend relying on CIFAS for fair dispute resolution. and indeed the reviews on Trustpilot are reflections of reality.

No one use this it’s all a fraud I’ve lost nearly 2k !!!!!

I'm very happy that I checked all the negative Trust Pilot reviews for CIFAS whilst considering purchasing their "protective registration" (after feeling that my personal information had been exposed).

According to the many negative reviews, a CIFAS "protective registration" is actually just a "black marker" against your name, that will RUIN YOUR CREDIT FILE AND MAKE YOU LIKELY TO BE DECLINED FOR BANK ACCOUNTS AND OTHER FINANCIAL PRODUCTS... No thank you. CIFAS and the "Protective registration" that it peddles are both clearly a SCAM!!

Personal data held by my employer was stolen by hackers. Even though there was no evidence of my data being misused, I signed up for Protective Cifas out of precaution.

Two months later and still with no sign of data misuse, I have been being declined bank account multiple times.

Banks do not care about doing enhanced ID verification when dealing with Cifas-marked customers. This was the main assumption why I signed up for Cifas.

Credit history is Good / Excellent across all agencies. Payment history is also very good. Unfortunately a Cifas marker stinks your credit file.

I still don’t understand how this company works for people that’s totally a lies.
They messed up for 6 years I waited till now again I got 6 years block on my account states(fraudulent activity) worst than ever

Victim of fraud it won’t accept bank details on page won’t accept by phone so can’t even use it. Very stressful and poor system poor service.

Absolutely disgusting awful service! They just post lies around your name! They don't even check if information is true!! They just put fraud markers against your name and make it impossible to ever get it removed

Blev uppringd av dem där sa de att de fryst mitt konto i ett bolag som jag har krypto i. Tänkte vad är nu detta. Gick in här och fick en massa information om denna organisation. Idag ringde de igen och jag sa till dem att jag vill inte ha med dem att göra. Hör häpna Då hotade de med att gå till domstol om jag inte betalade 1000eu. Jag sa snyggt att han skulle dra. Och sa jag på luren. Men han fortsatte att ringa flera ggr, Vad är det för kriminella organisationer som hotar människor. AKTA ER FÖR DENNA ORGANISATION.

You can only register online now I believe.

MyPAS is a better option. Google; A Solution To Identity Fraud or MyPAS

CIFAS take direct instruction from their organisational members regarding how and when to conduct their own investigations. Do not expect CIFAS to review your complaints to them, they simply just forward them to their members even if their own timescales have elapsed and their members had already provided 'final responses' CIFAS are more than prepared to delay them indefinitely in this manner until FOS are involved.

If you are submitting a SAR to CIFAS to see if you are 'on their blacklists' be sure to go back to their data controllers via email and repeatedly demand a copy of the historical searches made and results provided going back 6 years on all databases until it is provided. I say repeatedly, because they won't provide it to you and will instead pretend they do not know what you are asking for and direct you to the initial DSAR. They have provided me this information partially and only for 1 of their 2 databases. (although they now run more than 2 databases). You will not be provided this information through their generic DSAR.

If you are on the database, the next step is to get 'the evidence' that supports the submission from 'the member' who submitted you. CIFAS don't hold evidence because if they did hold it, they'd probably have a duty of care to review it... It also conveniently allows their members the ability to reverse engineer investigations that never took place for evidence they never had.

Remember, if you are challenging a marker, you don't have to provide CIFAS evidence of your innocence like they ask. The onus is on the member to provide evidence of guilt. You can not be expected to defend yourself without knowing exactly what you are acuused guilty of... And you can't be expected to make a case of your innocence with only a sentence vaguely referring to legislation that doesn't identify which legislation it is directly referring to or what the offense is or how it was committed. You need 1. the marker details, 2. the evidence the member holds 3. the allegation and how the member applied to to legislation. Wait until their member or CIFAS provides you their evidence before you begin making a case for removal, as is your right. Their members have to hold evidence... Make CIFAS view that evidence from their member and provide it to you, if they view it during your complaint, it is then in their possession and you don't need to get it from their member. You can not be expected to defend yourself from an allegation made and supporting evidence if their is no actual allegation made and the evidence might not even exist. Until this is provided you could be defending something completely different or something that you thought may have happened against a clerical error.

When the organisation that submitted a marker against my name replied to CIFAS they never provided CIFAS evidence, they just provided a list of screenshots of 'filenames.jpeg' and 'evidence.pdf'. CIFAS never compelled them to provide the actual files themselves, CIFAS never even supported the removal of the marker, they simply stated that the member chose to rescind the marker.

Meanwhile their website still shows this organisational member has not been removed even though CIFAS have received phone recordings of the members fraud team openly admitting while I am on hold that they do not conduct investigations or review evidence members of the public provide them. CIFAS listened to this call and still choose to keep this member as part of their organisational members with a recorded admission from advisors they recklessly submit markers without investigations taking place or evidence to back it up.

I am trying to get my son to open a bank account, he has a marker against his name which we dont know what for. Trying to get a report off these guys is so difficult, they asked the same questions 4 times, i provided answers. Useless, no help.

I’ve been struggling to open bank accounts for the last 5 years with each bank telling me it’s a credit issue (which it’s not).

After some thought, I decided to also check what data CIFAS had to see if this impacted my ability to open accounts - I filed a DSAR under GPDR regulations which was processed and returned within 5 working days.

The data returned allowed me to see that I had a marker that shouldn’t of been there, plus included all the information I needed to dispute it with Barclays.

10/10 for the no messing around approach to GPDR/DSAR - all handled online/email.

the protective registration system has a yawning contradiction at its heart which CIFAS cannot be unaware of, and it's this - imagine that I'm a fraudster wishing to target someone, use their information to set up bank a/cs etc. All I need to do is to take out a false registration under that person's name and address using my own other details, email etc. When I make my fraudulent application for credit (e.g.) in my target's name then I get the call and I of course say "yes of course, all is well, it's a kosher transaction!" You see, there is no need to prove your identity to get a protective registration. That doesn't seem to strike CIFAS as a problem. Of course taking it a step further , when my TARGET tries to set up a new mortgage (or whatevs) they have no idea that they even have a protective registration! It's a fantastic system for the crims to exploit. Which I am in no way suggesting that anyone should do this but it's more for CIFAS to take note of and clean up what is, let's face it, a half-@rsed act. I love you all.

Horrific. Denying me a refund when they are legally obliged to give me one as I got in touch within 14 days (I got in touch within 24 hours via their online form and Facebook).

Had an excellent experience with this company. Most of the negative reviews on this site are written in appalling english, probably by shady individuals who have been involved in fraud (and not as the victims...)

This Cifas make my future worse!
I don’t know how and why my details are with them but I’m pretty sure someone will give me a compensation of making my life worse

Cifas is the only law type of service I know that has the worst reviews. These guys wouldn’t know what help is if it shot them in their face point blank range , their workers are dreadful and they don’t know what they’re doing and they can’t even do a simple thing that’ll take less than 5 minutes to do. Then I call them one more time just find out there customer service is no longer supported. Sigh. Here’s a solution, take the whole company down, because CIFAS is lucky they haven’t been sued

Shame on you Cifas. You ruined people's lives. I have lost almost £3000 to pay broker and solicitor for my mortgage and declined every time. Now I have found there is marker on Cifas report which was confirmed by accord mortgages.
Don't know how you held unknown alias on my report.
I have paid more the £100 to Cifas to protect my identity after someone took mobile phone contract on my name at my previous address. which was reported to action fraud and three mobile and they removed my name from experian but still Cifas hold (marker) unknown name as an alias. This is ridiculous.
Cifas ruined my and family life.
I can not apply mortgage just because of Cifas (The so called God).