I have heard of paying to expedite certain activities, i.e. obtaining a D&B number; but not to correct an error. Does anyone have a similar experience?
Does it make sense when D&B asks for you to pay to correct an error in their records?
Answers
Regis - Our company had to correct some extremely old reporting error that D&B had for us. It had A/P showing as over 120 days that was reported by someone back in 2009. Once we proved it to be false, and extremely old, it was corrected. But it was a terrible hassle. They were always trying to sell something to us. We also had to get Experian involved also. I think the error originates with a credit reporting agency. Check the various credit reporting agencies to ensure your company information is reported correctly. Best of luck.
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D&B or D&D? If this was the fantasy role playing game Dungeons & Dragons, it might make more sense.
It would at least be more fun.
For those who never played, D&D is a fantasy role-playing game set in an imaginary world based loosely on medieval myth.
I guess the medieval myth in this game is that credit reports contain reliable information and, if not accurate, one can easily and quickly make corrections.
They had me in two different locations at the same time and my name spelled wrong. They really weren't interested in correcting the information only to sell me more services. What ever they report is old and inaccurate.
Regis-We have never had to pay to correct an error. We have typically called to give D&B updates, which they gladly take and correct. Sometimes, this may take a while to resolve.
I think D&B is a fraudulent acting company, living on a reputation from the 70's.
I don't work with, provide, ask or assume any data they have to be correct.
While I have a DUNS number, most of the information is not correct, which proves my point.
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Thank you. completely agreed. Unless you're dealing with government contracts, I see no reason to even consider paying them a cent.
Agreed, Wayne. Pay-Mode just called me to verify an address & phone number that my company had 20 years ago, listed on D&B. The caller was amazed that what they had was 20 years old and flat-out wrong. After looking around the web, I'm NOT surprised. They appear to be sloppy with facts and could care less.
My D & B experience is a terrible one. I inquired about their database for Canada a little over a year ago. Sales rep told me that it was 96% accurate and contained every Canadian business. I purchased the service on monthly payments (total cost $5500). On receiving the link, I did a generic pull for the local town I am located in. I was very disappointed in the results. Firstly, it had my company at our old address from 3.5 years prior! Then, 28% of the list had NO PHONE NUMBERS. I did similar searches for other areas, only to find the same lacking results. I called D & B and, after a while, they admitted their seemed to be a "technical error" and that it will be corrected soon. It never was corrected - I never used their date once - I couldn't, it was far too lacking and innacurate - I switched back to my previous provider - OneSource Canada. I wrote D & B to cancel the order based on the fact they were not providing what they said they would. I received one letter from them (9 months ago) stating they had cancelled the subscription but I was still liable to pay the full $5500 for "BREACH" of contract - that's right - ME breaching the contract!!!! I heard nothing more until today when I get notice from a collection agency for the $5500. I think a class action suite against D & B is called for, along with as much media attention as they deserve. STAY AWAY FROM D & B - especially in Canada.
Over the years in different companies I have noted that D&B has problems with accuracy. Once they get it wrong it is not always easy to fix. For this reason, I do not rely on their data. However, I never have had to pay to fix something other than spending a lot of time and much frustration.
I dislike and distrust this dishonerable company. Have tried many times over the years to work with them. Their data is often times inaccurate and I've been lied to on several instances by their sales people. We don't use them and don't report information to them. More specifically, I don not recall ever being asked to pay to correct erroneous data.
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Unfortunately, as a government contractor, we have to use them and pay the fees to correct erroneous and false data about our company. They are a horribly run company and what they do borders on extortion, in my opinion.
The following is a message sent to Dun and Bradstreet Credibility Corp.
I was misled to make a sale. and then put off. They keep ignoring me.
Its still a mess and they keep feeding me crap.
Dear Representative, I want to cancel my membership or service policy I have and refund my money. Less than 30 days ago I decided to try and work on my business credibility. I was trying to update my information when a chat window opened which led to me speaking with a sales representative. This person told me I could use this and that for trade references. I told him I wanted to keep my business separate from my personal credit since my business didn't have any bad credit. It just didn't have any credit. I was told no problem we can take care of that. He made promises and set up an echeck to pay them and forwarded me to customer service. This lady was really knowledgeable. However she told me I could not use the items the first person told me that I could. Should have canceled right then. She told me what I could use and helped me set it up. A few days later it was rejected. While speaking with customer service, she told me the business would be by it self . I told her that’s all I wanted, was to work on my business credit. She issued me another Dunns number. While looking at the dashboard I had my personal stuff all merged with my business. 2 dunns numbers. I explained that’s not what I want. She said I will fix it. It was a mess. I tried verifying all items on the dash boards but they kept going back and forth between my personal and business and kicking me out and all sort s of stuff. I received a postcard to verify my business address. I tried that and it went to my personal name. I called dandb. The person told me I don’t see the business dunns number. I told him to log into my dashboard and take a look. There were 4 items. He logged in and said oh I see. He couldn't figure it out and forwarded me to customer service again. Now she couldn't figure it out and said she would redo it and to expect another call from corporate and to check back with her around the 20th of the month. (so they could get another payment) They told me the dunns number they gave me for the business wasn't good anymore. I've had time to think about it and my wife has given me a tough time.
Now I've added to my already stressful situation. Cancel what ever this is and refund my money. Please. Thank you
Mike makes a fair point. However, in certain retail situations, there is no good alternative to D&B. When I worked for big oil, we spent a fair amount of time scrubbing and correcting their data.
They always send us "alert" telling us that "our credit score has decreased".
Couple of years ago, we contacted D&B agency and then they told us that we could improve our credit score by purchasing a package named "credit build-up" or something like that. That was more than $ 1200. Then they gathered lots of credit references from our vendors, and disputed bad (anonymous) reports. It was not very credible, since they do not reveal the company name who gave bad reference.
Then next year, when the $1200 package was expired, our credit score started decreasing again.... Well, you may say that was a coincidence, but they always tried to sell us something every time our credit score went down, even temporarily.
Other point is that the customer representatives are mostly outsourced people from South Asia and many times they didn't get the information in English 100% correctly when they tried to gather some data by phone...... So we had to follow up and call several times extra to verify if they got the correct information from our credit reference. That was one of the reason we cancelled their service. So cheap.
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Can't tell you the number of times we've received those "alerts".
And then the sales pitch....
I ignore them now.
Yes they have told me the only way to correct and update our information is to pay for their services. I declined and have had to work with a few clients to make them understand that our DUNS information is inaccurate and I'm not willing to pay their price to correct it.
I know that I am just agreeing with everyone above but D&B is not an easy or accurate company to work with. To get our credit correct they required us to pay $1200 per entity (we have 8) per location (we have 6) so 48x$1200. I felt this was outrageous to make sure our DUNS information was correct in their system. Then one of their agents promised me that we could link everything and manage with just a $2000 package. This was an out and out lie that I've been working with them for over a year to get a refund (they promised me the refund in March and I have yet to see the funds as of December 2012).
I agee with Linda above that many people use it because it is the only common one avaliable. I would definitly look into other credit companies if possible as I wouldn't believe anything that I get from D&B.
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Take a look at this:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303277704579349180265356854
Humorously, D&B is a fine example of a perverse incentive. As with all (but one) above, I've struggled to get D&B to fix bad data, and they definitely charge to add relevant data.
The perverse incentive is that much of what they do is necessarily free, and they need the sell up. The best incentive for selling up is to have a black mark fixed. Thus, D&B won't filter bad data or fix errors without getting paid.
I honestly don't dislike them; I understand why they exist, why they do what they do, etc. I just know that they have no incentive to provide good data (in specific cases; in aggregate they need to be reasonably good), so I have no use for them.
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Kieth, I have to disagree. They are playing a game which is probably just shy of committing RICO. Their ethics, or lack thereof, are way past that line.
They need to go, and the void they so poorly filled can be accomplished better by using informal means and trade groups (some which do exactly what D&B does, but with much much greater accuracy and without the backhanded corruption).
Has anyone switched to Credit
We have had similar horrid experiences with D&B. They sent us a credit downgrade alert. When I inquired about the details, they had false information on our account that appeared to come from a different company with a similar name. D&B refused to provide any details about these charges or to resolve the claims without us buying their credit monitoring service. I told them that I wouldn't consider paying them until they corrected our records. They should be prosecuted for fraudulent business practices.
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D&B is still mad that the IRS saw them for what they were, what the DUNS number was really about, and created the FEIN/TIN/EIN etc.
I am adding to the D&B bashers... I've made the mistake a couple times in my
If you are a small business do NOT sign up for any services of D&B, especially if you are privately held and have competitors trying to find info on you (have seen this first hand...)
If you need credit from a vendor and especially if you are a small business, just tell the company representatives that you do not report/update to D&B, but are happy to share appropriate financial information in confidence to help them make a credit decision and talk through things with folks at their company. I swear, this works 95% of the time! The same goes for you granting credit to a potential customer. Make a short credit application and evaluate based on your relationship/needs. Leaving a credit decision to a unknown rating agency does little to boost confidence. They are not going to help you if a customer becomes a collection issue.
I have never been asked to report payment of my customers info to D&B, so am not sure where they are getting their data from, other than super large companies like phone, utilities, etc.).
D&B's business model is dead and they continue to rely on the majority of the public to act like lemmings and blindly supply private information, without having any control over use of such.
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The problem is that if you are dealing with some large companies (Walmart and Target - 2 examples) and you have a low score, you can't even get in the door. Regardless of how terrible we think the system is, it is still the system. At least for now.
Paul - I absolutely agree on your suggestion to "just tell the company representatives that you do not report/update to D&B, but are happy to share appropriate financial information in confidence to help them make a credit decision and talk through things with folks at their company". I have done exactly that many times, without fail. The same goes for customers.
D&B can be a real headache, but for larger businesses, their products can increase efficiency in decision-making filters (to say nothing of accuracy). In short, play the game or don't... businesses can find success either way.
Has anyone submitted complaints to the FTC? I would say that if you all banded together and each filed a claim, this would get noticed and investigated for fraudulent
If D&B is improving your credit report but only if you pay, then after you pay it goes down again, their practices should be investigated.
I would like to thank you all for your comments. They have been interesting and of great value in helping me decide how to approach this situation.
FYI: Dun & Bradstreet Credibility has posted largely incorrect information about our firm DIPLOMAT Languages Inc. --- they may have made a confusion, I already found other confusions in other such unsolicited (uncontrollable, useless) listings by other similar bureaus;It's been impossible to have them correct it, I was asked to go through the motions of contacting various offices and even pay! for that --- an effort I have no time for. Please note the only up-to-date correct information is posted by our office on our corporate and affiliated websites where you can also find verifiable related sources.
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Is this a statement of fact or a public posting (which wouldn't suffice for most legal posting requirements I'm aware of.
D&B, CreditSafe,etc are pariahs and charlatans. When we in Finance stop using them, then they will either change or go away (I vote for go away).
I have been trying to correct an error with our company with D&B Govt for almost a year. Every time I contact them, I get emails saying "consider it done" but nothing ever happens.
You all know about this little "split up". Right?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dun_%26_Bradstreet_Credibility_Corp
This ^^^ is the one that has given me "the biz" trying to collect fees from us.
Interestingly enough, as a governmental recipient of Federal funds, we are required to have a D-U-N-N-S number. Which is what got us into this split loop of salesmanship in the first place.
D&B is receiving some attention from investors pricing them between $120 to $142 with an EPS of $1.67/share the next time it issues an earnings report at the end of October. Analysts are suggesting that looking at its current year EPS to be around $7.16.
It looks as though, despite how the majority of us view the transactions of D&B, they are loved by investors and the people who actually find their services of value. Perhaps their growth is evident of the role their marketing department has at coercing (maybe that's too strong a word) small businesses into "needing" their services.
http://www.themarketsdaily.com/analyst-actions/dun-bradstreet-corporation-the-nysednb-given-120-142-pt-range/52065/
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Chris,
coercing is too tame. It really is extortion.
My Experience with Dun and Bradstreet is awful. It is required for a corporate account at apple (why???), i applied twice for the DUNS number (I used the 30 day free service), they never got back to me (although they had my email id), and when I called they said they closed both files. I wonder why apple is using them, maybe apple is also turning into a bad company.
We have also used D&B in the past. Their information is very outdated and it is extremely time consuming to work with them to correct items. They also show us as having late pays although we pay on time on a consistent basis but trying to have them correct it has been nothing but a hassle. And like many others have stated, the upselling is quite annoying and unprofessional in my opinion when you are already paying for a service that should be providing accurate information. We gave up and no longer use them.
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