I noticed a soft pull on my Experian report from Providian.My personal account with them was closed & paid in full five years ago. I opted out from the big three bureaus more than six months ago. I am still pondering what to do about this as I can find no valid reason for the pull.I have no active accounts with either providian or washington mutual. I am seeing this as a nonpp. Appreciate your thoughts on the matter.
Wouldn't you be able to send them a letter asking them for an explination as to the pull? I've done that and they called me and said it would be removed with no fight at all.
Yes I am allowed to send a letter.I just want opinions on if I have the slightest chance of slapping them on the wrist for violating my privacy by pulling.I haven't heard from these idiots in five years and then they pull for absolutely no reason.
The reports will contain a listing of bureau subscribers who have been peering into your information. Inquiries can cause a creditor to deny credit. Potential creditors look for heavy inquiries or inquiries without corresponding trade lines and treat such a "red flags". Make the inquirers tell you why they looked at your file. If they have no permissible purpose, you should consider contacting the Federal Trade Commission, the United States Secret Service and the consumer reporting agency (who allowed the access). Confidentiality of your credit report is critical and bureau subscriber should use their terminal and report access in a responsible manner. A private civil action may also lie under the Fair Credit Reporting Act [FCRA].
Levine vs. WFNNB, Structure Inc., Experian D. C. Docket No. 04-01283-CV-BBM-1 http://www.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions/ops/200416428.pdf
Garrett v. Trans Union, L.L.C., Slip Copy, 2006 WL 2850499, S.D.Ohio, September 29, 2006 (No. 2:04-CV-00582.) Soroka v. Homeowners Loan Corp., Slip Copy, 2006 WL 4031347, M.D.Fla., June 12, 2006 (No. 8:05 CV 2029 T 17MAP.) Those may be of interest, though, I haven't read the full complaints.
cajun, they did go after the creditor (at the same time), it just was Experian's dismissal which survived to go to appeal without a settlement, and the overturning of the appeal shows why Structure/WFFNB decided to settle.
Since your account was closed, and paid in full, 5 years ago, they had no permissible purpose. If you actually had a legitimate open account with them, or even if you thought you had closed it but they kept it open, you would see the account TL, and also AR inquiries monthly going back as far as the CRAs are required to report them to you (2 years). Possible reasons they might have pulled: 1) Confusing you with some other consumer with similar name. 2) Id theft. 3) Confusion over Providian records, resulting from purchase by WAMU. 4) (3) combined with preparing to sell off any old "charged-off" accounts. 5) Snoopy employee. I am assuming that this "soft inquiry" is an Account Review, seen only by you, and implying that Providian thinks they have an existing account with you. There is no damage to your credit or scores, as viewed by others, from 1 soft inquiry. However, all of the above are reasons to challenge any inquiry. They could turn bad, possibly at an inopportune time, and if they do, they won't get better by themselves. You would be better off challenging this now, with time on your side, than finding someone else's old collection account on your reports just as you are about to buy a house.
Well since I do not have any bad debt at all & my monitoring program is not squalling about a new account,I would think either confusion or complete disregard for my privacy in the first place. I will draft them a love letter and send it out once I digest some of the case cites I have collected.
Note that an application by an id thief would probably still get Providian off under "permissible purpose", but you would want to go down the FACTA route to obtain all information on the attempt, and even get the inquiry removed by the CRA, even if no account was successfully opened. A soft AR inquiry implies an existing account, not a new application for credit. There is no reason to have doors and locks if you don't use them.
You are quite correct on that.I have not detected anything in regards to id theft and I pull thru Amex site daily.They also set it up similar to truecredit with the alert emails. I don't need the fraud alerts,but I will look into that also.
Why EX lost, is any idiot looking over their own records (and their system should have detected it automatically), was that their WAS no account to review, as the consumer's only account with the company was reporting as PIF, *IF* they had BULLSEYED only their OWN reporting, and not obtained the ENTIRE consumer report, then EX and the DF would have been protected.
