Beware false information conveyed by the publishers of your credit report
Credit scores are important determinants of an individual's ability to obtain credit, and to borrow at a reasonable cost. Everyone is entitled to a free credit report from each of the three credit reporting agencies (Equifax, Experian and TransUnion) once every 12 months. The lesson to be learned from this issue is that everyone should scrutinize their credit scores regularly because they are important, and they are not always accurate. Read on.
On February 11, I purchased a used car (a pre-owned Genesis, because the state of California will not allow Genesis to sell new cars in California until certain permissions are yet to be obtained, permissions the dealership could/would not explain to me--but that's a different story). I financed part of the cost through a major credit union affiliated with the north county Hyundai dealership I had dealt with previously. After waiting five minutes for the financing to be approved on-line, I was informed credit had been denied due to insufficient information about me in the agencies' credit files, which the dealership knew was inaccurate because they had seen my credit reports previously and they were excellent. Nonetheless, it took them another 15 minutes to straighten out the credit records and my credit was approved at a favorable rate.
Today I received three form letters from the National Credit Center Compliance Department, each dated March 8, 2019, each referencing my request to obtain credit on February 11. All three letters informed me that pursuant to federal law I was receiving the letter because I may have been denied credit (not true) or was offered financing at less favorable terms than I had requested (also not true).
Two of the three letters reference Experian, noting Experian had not provided a credit score due to a lack of sufficient credit history--don't I wish! I have almost 60 years of extensive use of credit, and an unblemished record for all six decades. Worse than Experian, however, were TransUnion's two reports. The first one, like Experian, said "Score not available due to lack of sufficient credit history." But TransUnion went on to say that credit scores range from 250 to 900 and my score was 868. They noted further my credit score was higher than 98 percent of all consumers-- higher, not lower. Better, not worse.
I called the Experian number to ask about my alleged lack of a credit history, but the recorded messages did not allow me to speak with a human. Nor could I reach a human at TransUnion. However, TransUnion did offer to sell me its credit monitoring service for about $20 per month. Just think every month they could tell me what an outstanding job I did managing my credit "better than 98 percent of all consumers" while also explaining why I'd probably been turned down for credit or had to pay more than I wanted to pay to obtain credit. Can you imagine paying for a service which is so blatantly inaccurate not to mention internally inconsistent in the messages they give you about this important measure of your willingness and ability to manage credit?
I'll damn sure not buy TransUnion's service, even for $1 per month. For the supposed purveyors of truth about individuals' records handling debts publishing such untruth about me (and perhaps you, if you haven't looked at your credit report lately) is unconscionable. If they actually had hurt my ability to get credit or their records had caused me to pay unfavorable rates for credit, I would have looked into suing them. But I don't have trouble getting credit despite the inaccurate data about my record, so instead of suing I'll just remind readers to scrutinize their credit reports regularly and carefully. And if reading your credit report has a story you'd also like to share with my readers feel free to add a comment to my blog.
On February 11, I purchased a used car (a pre-owned Genesis, because the state of California will not allow Genesis to sell new cars in California until certain permissions are yet to be obtained, permissions the dealership could/would not explain to me--but that's a different story). I financed part of the cost through a major credit union affiliated with the north county Hyundai dealership I had dealt with previously. After waiting five minutes for the financing to be approved on-line, I was informed credit had been denied due to insufficient information about me in the agencies' credit files, which the dealership knew was inaccurate because they had seen my credit reports previously and they were excellent. Nonetheless, it took them another 15 minutes to straighten out the credit records and my credit was approved at a favorable rate.
Today I received three form letters from the National Credit Center Compliance Department, each dated March 8, 2019, each referencing my request to obtain credit on February 11. All three letters informed me that pursuant to federal law I was receiving the letter because I may have been denied credit (not true) or was offered financing at less favorable terms than I had requested (also not true).
Two of the three letters reference Experian, noting Experian had not provided a credit score due to a lack of sufficient credit history--don't I wish! I have almost 60 years of extensive use of credit, and an unblemished record for all six decades. Worse than Experian, however, were TransUnion's two reports. The first one, like Experian, said "Score not available due to lack of sufficient credit history." But TransUnion went on to say that credit scores range from 250 to 900 and my score was 868. They noted further my credit score was higher than 98 percent of all consumers-- higher, not lower. Better, not worse.
I called the Experian number to ask about my alleged lack of a credit history, but the recorded messages did not allow me to speak with a human. Nor could I reach a human at TransUnion. However, TransUnion did offer to sell me its credit monitoring service for about $20 per month. Just think every month they could tell me what an outstanding job I did managing my credit "better than 98 percent of all consumers" while also explaining why I'd probably been turned down for credit or had to pay more than I wanted to pay to obtain credit. Can you imagine paying for a service which is so blatantly inaccurate not to mention internally inconsistent in the messages they give you about this important measure of your willingness and ability to manage credit?
I'll damn sure not buy TransUnion's service, even for $1 per month. For the supposed purveyors of truth about individuals' records handling debts publishing such untruth about me (and perhaps you, if you haven't looked at your credit report lately) is unconscionable. If they actually had hurt my ability to get credit or their records had caused me to pay unfavorable rates for credit, I would have looked into suing them. But I don't have trouble getting credit despite the inaccurate data about my record, so instead of suing I'll just remind readers to scrutinize their credit reports regularly and carefully. And if reading your credit report has a story you'd also like to share with my readers feel free to add a comment to my blog.
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