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Credit Score/Credit Reports Who Can Look at Your Credit Report?
Credit Score/Credit Reports Who Can Look at Your Credit Report?
| Who Can Look at Your Credit Report? |
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| Written by Administrator |
| Friday, 18 July 2008 10:06 |
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The federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) (15 U.S.C. §1681 and following) and state credit reporting laws restrict who can access your credit report and how it can be used. (Appendix 2 contains the text of the FCRA.) The people and entities that can request your credit report include: • Employers Employers often use credit reports to conduct background checks of job applicants and to assess current employees for promotions or job reassignments. Before ordering your credit report, employers must first get your written authorization and provide certain disclosures. Many employers never look at credit reports. And those that do often will not be concerned about your financial problems. If you do have some negative information on your report, you might want to discuss it with the employer before he or she sees the report. • Government Agencies Government agencies can request your credit report to determine whether you are eligible for public assistance. They do this to look for any hidden income or assets you might have, not to see if you have unpaid bills. The law also allows state and local government officials to get reports to help determine whether you can make child support payments. But not all government agencies can look at your credit report. For example, district attorneys cannot look at reports to investigate criminal or civil cases and the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) cannot get a report for an immigration proceeding or for reviewing citizenship applications. • Insurance Companies Insurance companies can look at your credit report. Usually, they are not interested in your credit history, but instead may ask about your medical history or about any insurance claims you have filed. • Collection Agencies Collection agencies can look at your report when trying to collect an overdue debt from you. They mainly do this to try to locate you or find out more about your assets. • Judgment Creditors Judgment creditors are allowed to look at credit reports in order to decide whether to begin collection efforts against you. They can also use reports for skip tracing (hiring someone to locate you or your assets). • Potential Creditors Creditors are allowed to review your report when you apply for credit. Although this is a broad category, there are some restrictions. For a new transaction, you must have made an offer or otherwise initiated a credit transaction before the creditor can look at your report. It is important to be careful when you are shopping around, especially for cars. Dealers will try to get you to sign an authorization so that they can look at your report and size up your financial situation before beginning their sales pitch. This request will then appear on your credit report and may negatively affect your credit. • Landlords and Mortgage Lenders Landlords and mortgage lenders are also allowed to review your report. You can expect mortgage lenders to scrutinize your report very carefully before offering to lend you money to buy a home. • Utility Companies Utility companies can request your credit report. However, there are special rules that prevent utility companies from denying you service in many circumstances, even if you have bad credit. Negative marks will only matter if you owe money to the particular utility company from which you seek service. Even then, most utility companies are required to offer special payment plans and programs for people with low income that allow you to get utility service by making payments that are affordable for you. • Student Loans and Grants Most lenders offering federal student loans cannot deny your application because of poor credit. However, there are a few exceptions. For example, lenders are required to check the credit of parents applying for PLUS loans. Also, you cannot get a new federal loan if you are in default on another federal loan. |
| Last Updated ( Friday, 18 July 2008 10:10 ) |