I was in a bank today opening a new account. They told me they had to do a credit check first to see if I qualify for opening it. Seemed pretty standard to me and I wasn’t too worried, I have good credit.
When the guy comes back in I ask him if I had a good rating (just making small talk) and he says “yeah, pretty good”. I then ask him what it is and he tells me “I’m sorry, but I’m not allowed to tell you that”.
WTF? Why not? Your credit is the equvalent of a permanent record and it seems to me you should be able to know what’s on there. I know you can order one free copy per year according to federal law but does it have to be necessary to jump through those hoops just to find out a number? I wasn’t even interested in any other information. I was just curious as to how high my score was.
You live in Georgia, IIRC you are entitled to not one but two free credit reports per year (according to www.equifax.com). How you obtain these “absolutely free” credit reports, I’m not sure. There’s usually some bastard middle-man if you search on the web.
Why has the bank any obligation to tell you anything and what do they gain by doing it? nothing. OTOH if they give you the information and then deny it to me I can argue i am being discriminated. If they give me information I disagree with they can find themseleves in an argument they can avoid just by not giving me the information.
Their policy makes a lot of sense: do not give information which is not needed and which can bring headaches but nothing good.
Actually, you are not entitled to a free credit report under federal law. In many states, there is a charge. However, if you are denied credit you are entitled to a free credit report and an explanation as to why the application was declined.
FWIW, I’ve applied for a home loan. I asked my credit score over the phone (the bank is in another state) and they gave it to me. They also gave me my score from the last time I applied (last Spring), and told me what they considered an acceptable score.
Lenders have agreements with the national credit reporting agencies in which they agree not to distribute credit information to their customers.
It also serves as protection to them. Once they distribute information, they can be considered an agency and be held to the same standards as a credit reporting agency under the FCRA. In short, that’d suck for a lender to be in that predicament.
Yes, it is to avoid catastrophic headaches all around.
Often, the lender is not best suited to answer questions, and the score is sometimes purchased with the credit report, or is a scoring model of their own, or a combo.
Usually, the flat agreement between lenders and credit reporting agencies is honored and info is not provided. The consumer has a right to a free report from the credit reporting agency if they are denied credit/employment or have reason to believe they were harmed somehow.
While it may seem that you were party to a three way transaction - you, the credit reporting agency and the bank - you were really party to one transaction. The bank was party to two separate transactions. You were trying to become a client of the bank. The bank is already a client of the credit reporting agency. The bank chooses to use information supplied by the credit reporting agency to aid in making a decision about taking you on as a client. The bank’s contract with the credit reporting agency does not allow the bank to discuss or disclose any of the credit information to it’s clients (or potential clients). As a matter of fact disclosing information is strongly discouraged if not outright forbidden by the contract. sailor gave one good example. The underlying reason is that the information is the “property” of the credit reporting agency and, therefor, can only be obtained through them. The bank is obligated, upon request, to provide you with the name of the agency (or agencies) used and contact information so that you may obtain the same information.
The above goes not only for banks, but any credit grantor which uses data supplied by a credit reporting firm. Yeah, I know the finance guy at the car lot let you see your credit report, but he’s not supposed to. He’s technically putting his employer at risk of losing access to the credit data by breaking the contract.
Let me just say, I am sick of the ways in which your credit report can be used to deny services. You weren’t asking for credit, right? You just wanted to give them your money told in an account.
Note that getting your credit report will not get your credit score. That’s very $$$ proprietary information created by the credit agency. They sell that information to the bank. The bank is not authorized to give away someone else’s IP.
Thanks for all the info guys. The bank probably has a contract with the credit agency (like Doctor Jackson said). Still, it did seem weird to me at the time.
Yes, I was just opening a simple checking account, Bongmaster. I’m in complete agreement with you about credit reports too. Now that I think about it, if I was trying to get a loan and the same situation happened, I would have gotten angry and made a big deal out of it.
Thanks for the tip, dnooman. It might come in handy one of these days. As long as I don’t move to another state.
Actually, the credit check was probably for a check guaranty card. The checking account information is done though ChexSystems most of the time. CS keeps all information on checking accounts, even the last time you ordered checks.
ChexSystems
Put this cite down, along with the credit reporting bureaus, for the yearly databases accuracy checks that are now part of living in today’s world.
As long as I don’t move to another state.