Q: Who can access my credit report and when will they access
A: potential lenders are not the only organizations that access your credit report to make decisions based on your creditworthiness. In fact, there are several sources that will need access to your credit file. The FCRA (Fair Credit Reporting Act) provides important details about the types of situations in which your credit report can be accessed, and by whom.
Who can access my credit report
Individuals can not access your credit report without a legitimate circumstances. Most often, the credit bureaus - Experian, Equifax and TransUnion - can provide the information in your credit report if you, the consumer, have provided written authorization to the organization requesting the information. For example, a bank where you are applying for a loan, an apartment owner that you are trying to lease and / or prospective employer who wants to check your credit report every obvious need and delete the information written in their giving permission.
There are a number of reasons why different institutions may need to access your credit report (as it reads in the FCRA):
- intends to use the information in a credit transaction or of giving credit or reviewing or collecting on behalf of the consumer
- intends to use the information for purposes job
- intends to use the information in the insurance underwriting process
- intends to use the information to determine eligibility for a license or another advantage provided by the government where it is required by law to review the financial responsibility or status
- candidate intends to use the information to determine if a consumer is a good credit risk (which means that he / she pay bills)
- needs the information as part of a commercial transaction that is initiated by the consumer or to examine an account in order to determine whether the consumer continues to meet the terms of the
- for departments and executive agencies in connection with the issuance of travel individually billed credit cards sponsored by the government
institutions do not always need your written permission to access your credit report, however. For example, credit bureaus can provide your credit report when it is in response to the decision of a court or a summons issued in the context of proceedings before a federal grand jury. They can also provide this information if it is proved that the credit report is needed to establish the ability of a person to make payments of child support and in what amount, although the person will receive a notification that their credit report will be available.
What you can do
All of the listed situations are considered "hard inquiries" because your credit report is pulled by people other than you, and can have a negative effect on your credit score. These difficult investigations will be listed on your credit report, so it is a good idea to regularly check your credit report to see who had access. Note that checking your file credit is considered a "soft inquiry" and will not have any effect on your credit score.
You can get your full report 3-bureau credit report from one of the monitoring services high credit like Identity Guard, which currently offers a free 30-day trial and 25% off for NextAdvisor readers. services like Identity Guard monitor your credit report daily and alert you to any changes immediately so that you can protect against identity theft, and of course, stay on top of who is accessing your credit file. Learn more about credit report monitoring services.