Creditsafe, please leave me alone
I’m still receiving sales calls from a company called Creditsafe Business Solutions Ltd despite having less than politely told them that I don’t want to hear from them again. I’ve nothing against mailshots and cold calling, people have to make a living after all, and I use the former method myself. However, this lot have to win the award for most persistent and thick skinned sales people ever.
Disclaimer: Although I have personal experience of their phone tactics, I have no other direct experience of their business practices and am simply reporting what I found on other sites within the links shown. I make no claims as to the accuracy of those sites.
EDIT: I’ve been asked to point out that this company is in no way connected with a similarly named company called Creditsafe Ltd, a debt recovery company based in Leyland, Lancashire. The company I am talking about is Creditsafe Business Solutions Ltd and NOT Creditsafe Ltd.
Burn!
I won’t do them the service of linking to them, but their web site is creditsafeuk.com if you want to have a look. They have also been known to operate under other names such as Marketsafe and ASA Creditsafe. They are based in Wales and have a legion of sales people with friendly sounding Welsh accents.
There doesn’t appear to be anything wrong with their product. What they’re selling is data; names, addresses, credit records etc, all for marketing purposes. Nothing you couldn’t obtain for free elsewhere, from Companies House etc, but they’ve packaged in such a way as to make it easy to use and less time consuming to compile. Very much like what Thomson Local (who I’ve used) are selling.
It’s their sharp marketing practices and high pressure sales that are the problem. The call starts off by making you trawl through a bunch of web pages demonstrating their services, followed by the ‘close’ which tries to extract £900 from you in return for one year’s worth of access to their data. Hold out for long enough and the price will come down to £150. Never a good way to earn my trust! What this implies to me is: ‘Our product is only worth £150 but we’re going to try and make you pay £900 to start with!’
Try to say no, and you get multiple follow up calls, from different sales people. To some punters this has been too good a deal to miss. However, the crunch comes at renewal time when you receive a bill for £900. So you try to cancel, and then find that somewhere in the small print was a clause saying that you can only cancel if you give 30 days notice prior to renewal, otherwise you have to pay up or face legal action! This isn’t an empty threat, Creditsafe have successfully sued some customers.
Even worse, it’s been alleged that if during their online demonstration you click their terms and conditions confirming you have read them, you may receive a nasty surprise: Threatening letters stating that you have digitally signed and entered into a contract with them and they will be taking you to court if you don’t pay up.
As the links above show, there are complaints all over the internet about this company. You’ll also find a few favourable comments on forums too – sales staff from the company have allegedly been involved in astroturfing campaigns, posing as satisfied customers, posting comments under multiple aliases in order to promote the company and play down any bad press. (The culprits are really obvious if you look).
I’ve read that there is a very high turnover of staff at the company and I’m not surprised, this is one of the worst examples of high pressure sales tactics I’ve ever seen, there is a definite air of desperation about the staff I’ve spoken to.
To Creditsafe Business Solutions Ltd and any of its subsidiaries: If you’re reading this, please don’t call me again, I’m not interested in what you’re selling. To everyone else, my advice is simple: AVOID!
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One Response to “Creditsafe, please leave me alone”
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Hi,
Im glad you read my post about them and included the link. I have updated recently. My advice to anyone who is receiving threatening letters is DONT PAY. I didnt and they have done nothing! I logged into their system once and decided it wasnt for me, they phone, phone, phoned until I just said take me to court then, you have no signature from me…..goodbye. Then came the letters, everyone with a reduced bill. They just want anything they can get off you. To start selling at £800 then the bill going to £140??? What does that tell you about what they are selling…if they are so quick to devalue it.
Also there database is well out of date! As I checked what companies did and didnt have wesbites on their system when I logged in and their data was totally incorrect and so useless for me.
So dont give them any money please!!