then by law, they must report all dealings, including positive ones.
Throughout the years, I’ve seen many companies only report when a bill goes unpaid and is sent to collections. I propose a law that requires all companies that will send a bill to collections with the end result being a negative on a person’s credit report be required to report the entire account history of all customers including every on-time payments.
Only this way would a person’s entire accurate credit history be shown.
Would you support this law? What unintended consequences could result? Discuss.
I don’t think you understand how the reporting process works. Lenders report if you have borrowed money, opened a credit card, etc. If there is nothing negative on your credit report, then it is known that you have paid all of your bills on time, or have done so in a satisfactory manner.
I guess I am missing something. Let me explain: I just reviewed my credit report. It shows mortgage, car loan, etc. all satisfactory. It also shows from 5 years ago when I moved out of an apartment and forgot to cancel phone service. Stupid mistake, yes, but there is the ding on my report.
My fault, yes, but why are the previous seven years of on time payments not reported? That would give a lender a more accurate view of my credit history.
Most lenders are aware that the average candidate for a loan has been paying utility bills for years. That’s why a late payment of a power bill doesn’t ding your credit very badly. Outstanding balances count for more.
What!?
Your credit rating is not a government run program.
It’s not there to track all your credit transactions, it is a system, established by banks, lending institutions, credit companies, etc…, that tracks your credit history and indicates the risk level of extending you credit.
They want to see that you pay all your bills all the time, and all on time, not that usually you do but once in a while you’re late or you don’t.
Just because you show up for work early or on time most of the time, doesn’t mean you can come in late the other days.
The actual credit reports I have seen, the ones used by lenders, not the ones issued by “free credit report” agencies, have included a column at the end made up of a block of numbers. IIRC, they are three lines long, and twelve spaces wide.
The numbers, from 1 to X, give information on the last 36 months of payments, with 1s indicating on time payments, and Xs indicating no payment at all. So it is on there.
Because then you’d be complaining about the one time you did mail your payment on time, you totally swear, but the post office must have delayed it (resulting in a barely appreciable “ding”).
Mine also showed payment history going back at least three years and from some institutions going back five years from Equifax.
I wasn’t impressed with TransUnion’s free report at all… not very much detail.
Equifax’s on the other hand was something like 28 pages long. :eek:
No I would not. As Sparky says, it’s none of the government’s business. And even if you did force businesses to provide this additional, more voluminous information, you cannot force them to use it. If a business doesn’t want to offer credit to anyone who has reneged on a single debt in the past X years regardless of how many times you didn’t, it is their right to do so.