Imran

I was looking to improve my credit score as I had a default put against my account by Vodafone (which I later got removed from my file after making a complaint as it was out of contract and they hadn't cancelled my account as requested leading to this default)

Despite this marker on my file I was able to get a loan, Credit Spring does do a hard check before getting a loan but it's relatively easy to get the loan, my reason for this was primarily to improve my credit score by having successful payments on file.

It does offer two loans (one every six months) as part of the service - I just opted for one solely to increase my credit mix and have successful payments on file.

It doesn't charge interest as such but basically has a subscription model and the subscription payments is what builds your credit score.

As long as there's nothing serious on file and you may have had one or two issues with credit that have unfairly affected your credit history then Credit Spring seems to be quite useful.

The Equifax site is good for checking address history and personal information on file.
It also lists your credit agreements but there isn't an easy way to gauge things like average age of accounts (AAoA).

For a paid service I think it should include this sort of functionality especially as AAoA is linked to score.

The other issue is that it sends an email every time you log on AND sends you message in your Equifax inbox.

There is no way to delete the messages in Equifax's inbox, there should be a delete or archive option in my opinion as a lot of the messages can be identical just add clutter

Also when signing in, it's not immediately clear what changes there have been in your credit report without having to look into it. An email (and message) is sent when there has been changes but it's not easy to work out exactly what changes these are.

Since signing up I increased my score from 610 to 769 and after 5 months its usefulness has plateaued.

As a paid service, it's good for seeing immediate updates to your score, credit agreements and receiving notifications about searches.

But the inbox becomes very large quickly so can't really browse through it.

And the user interface could benefit from being more interactive and informative - the data is there but requires interpretation and calculation

ClearScore is a very good way of getting your Equifax data without paying for an Equifax subscription. It's much more use friendly than the Equifax site

And has a better graphical interface than Equifax and tells you key details such as "Your debt has been trending up over the past year".

And it also emails things like "A credit agreement is being added to your report"

The downside is that there can sometimes be a five week gap between Equifax being updated and it being replicated onto ClearScore but as a free service it's excellent.

What they don’t tell you when you sign up for BuildMyCreditScore is that it’s best to make purchases in the middle of the month not towards the end or beginning – I only found this out when I subscribed to Experian. Using a quarter of your daily limit on three purchases at the end of the month can actually lower your Credit score as it increases card utilisation.

Once I learned this I adjusted my spending behaviour taking this in mind my score increased, however then I received an email from someone called Georgi Slavov asking me to upload personal details with what looked like a suspicious phishing link to verify my identity but our IDs and identity should be verified through Open Banking (it’s how we create the account in the first place).

When I asked for further details apparently I may be a “Politically Imposed Person” – I have no idea what this means and when I asked for details I was given the name of some political party in Crawley.

I then asked to close my account rather than providing ID but apparently I can’t do this without confirming my date of birth - this all sounds very suspicious and like an attempt to harvest my data outside of Open Banking.

When I mention that under the Consumer Rights Act 2015, I am entitled to a termination when a service is not provided with reasonable care or as described he stopped responding

To be clear I don’t actually want to close my account before a year has elapsed and would rather carry on but this all seems very odd and suspicious to me.

The link I was sent to apparently "verify" myself didn't have buildmycreditscore in name. If I was suitably assured this was a bona fide request I would look to retain my account.

I will ultimately raise this with the FCA and the Financial Ombudsman Service if not resolved to my satisfaction. I am a paying customer with legitimate concerns that are not being addressed.

-- Edit --
I've upped the rating to two stars as I've had contact and am now satisfied the link is bona fide, I'll update further based on what happens next.

The order hadn't been dispatched when I was asked for a review, so my initial review was based on this. I had a prompt response from customer service about this as a "replacement charger for the laptop" was needed before dispatch.

When raising orders it does say to allow 14 days and the order tracking was updated on the 14th day, arriving within 15 days (on Boxing Day).

Considering the prompt response I received, the fact it was the XMAS period and the delay was ensuring I had a functional charger - the service has been very good.

I was happy to receive a working laptop at a good price that I can use.

I ordered a Karrimor backpack, quite small and compact but large enough to carry the essentials, good for travelling on trains and Flixbus as well as outdoors.

I’m upping my rating slightly (**) as I eventually got this sorted by writing to Lowell, they would have been able to determine that there was no evidence of arrears notices by Vodafone, no evidence of a default notice. No communication for 5 years, a disputed contract cancellation, a trivial balance and immediate payment once notified by Lowell
Under FCA and ICO rules, that is enough to require removal of the default.

I had initially received a letter from Lowell at the wrong address, it was forwarded to me at my current address. I just paid off what was owed, despite this a few months later I find my credit files was updated listing this as a default.

Important to note - the default WASN'T put on my account when I paid off the debt but a couple of months later. The letter from Lowell says “we’re here to help” - which obviously hadn't happened. I did wonder if I'd actually been penalised for paying it off early rather than monthly stream of payments as the default notice came months later.

As an aside, the debt was from Vodafone for an out of contract account that I had long assumed was settled due to lack of communication from them. Experian showed
Account opened: 5th August 2016, contract ended: 5th August 2017
Default showed as opened on 01 August 2020

However the letter from Lowell was in March 2025 and paid it off in March 2025
Lowell showed as settled: 06 April 2025. The Default showed up on Experian: November 2025
(none of the information was listed before on Experian)

Also note - this is an unprompted review because I didn't engage with Lowell at all, I just paid off the balance without them ever getting in touch again.

I am fairly certain that if I had just dragged out the payment no default would have been listed – as it just seemed like something being updated on the system post-settlement.
To comment further on Ellie’s reply below – “there is legal duty” to “make sure that the information” is correct – there are also consumer rights which mean that defaults applied in error or in bad faith by Vodafone are removed from the record under FCA and ICO rules.

And I am pleased to say that this now appears to have been removed by Lowell – although they have not written back to me to confirm this. I’ll update the review (***) if I receive the letter.

I would have liked to rate this higher, but I had a query about the slides returned to me but have not had a response about this.

As a paying customer I would expect some form of response about this.

Absolutely terrible service I had a delivery that should have been delivered on Monday but the tracking app then showed:

"There is a 1 day delay in your area ..."

It's been showing this message on and off for the past five days - it's now Sunday morning.