I've been declined for credit, insurance or another product orservice - could it be that a CIFAS warning caused this?

There are many reasons why your application for financial or related services may be declined. It might, for instance, be because of something on your credit file. You may wish to obtain a copy of your credit file from the Credit Reference Agencies to see if this is the case. Your application may also have been declined for reasons related to an organisation’s credit scoring systems. You do have the right to ask for a manual review of your application and, if the organisation’s decision remains unchanged, they should be able to indicate to you their reason(s) why. CIFAS information is not used as part of any credit scoring systems.

CIFAS information cannot be viewed by everyone, only by CIFAS Members. Any application or account where a CIFAS warning is recorded will be manually reviewed and investigated. CIFAS Members will be aware of the correct procedures to follow.

A CIFAS warning in your name does not mean that you have been blacklisted. It means that extra precautions should be taken to ensure that the application for an account, product, facility, insurance policy or employment that has prompted the check of your details is genuine, protecting you and CIFAS Members from fraud.

If you are concerned that it is CIFAS information that has affected your application or account, you should first make a Subject Access Request to CIFAS to find out what information, if any, is recorded about you.

If, after receiving your Subject Access Request, you remain concerned that CIFAS data adversely affected your application for an account or facility, you may ask CIFAS to investigate. Please note that CIFAS will only investigate cases where you have first contacted the company concerned and requested a reason for the rejection (and have evidence of this). Please contact us with full details of the situation. CIFAS will investigate the matter with the CIFAS Member involved to discover why the facility was declined. We will write to you with the result of our enquiries.

CIFAS reserves the right to request satisfactory evidence of identity before investigating such cases.

Please note that, if the application concerned was made more than 6 months ago, there may be a delay in the outcome of the investigation because many organisations archive applications after a set period.