I would like to take a look at my credit report but I am worried that my debt collectors are going to respond to it (i.e. sue me before the SOL has expired on my debts). Is this a reasonable concern?? When I moved into my apartment, I had a credit check, and before long all my collectors were calling the apartment management and my neighbors. I have assumed that the credit check is what drew attention... Are collectors able to look at my credit report whenever they want? I remember having a collector tell me what other debts he could see on my credit report- it made it sound to me as if they can take a look at it without it appearing as an official inquiry. Thanks for any help!
If you look at your own credit report via annualcreditreport or true credit or the same, it will not show as an inquiry. When the apartment complex pulled your credit report it showed as an inquiry with their phone number and that is why the calls started. Yes collectors are able to pull your credit given they have permissible purpose, i.e. a valid debt. Anytime they pull your credit it will show as an inquiry with their name.
Thank you collectman, I have never heard those terms before. I am a bit confused though. I have read that only I can view soft inquiries. I have also read that apartment rental inquiries are soft inquiries. The last two sites I read this from are: http://business.lovetoknow.com/wiki/Credit_Terms and http://www.better-credit-fast.com/faq.htm The second link is marketing a book/program but the text states that sometimes soft inquiries are miscoded as hard inquiries. If this is what happened to me I can see how the collectors became aware. If not it would suggest that the collectors found a way to view the soft inquiries. Is this something their skip tracking practices might have permitted?
If you pull your own credit report you can see soft and hard inquiries. When a collector pulls the credit report it will only show them all your tradelines, and hard inquiries. The first link under Hard Inquiry, shows rental application, so I would assume that is how it is showing up. I have seen lots of apartment on credit reports so they are a hard inquiry. Also, they probably have a monitor on your credit report. Similar to the kind you would have, they are notified the same day when someone pulls one of you credit reports.
Thanks again. I received a response on another forum stating that through skip tracing collectors can learn of when I pull my credit report even though my pulls are not shown on the copy that they see. I think I'll wait a few months to pull my report, just to be safe. Until then I'm going to try to find the forms I need to file and learn about the procedures to follow in case things heat up.
Skip tracers can not find out when you pull your own credit report. It shows up as a private pull that only you can see.
