This is true, however, what I believe Doc is trying to convey is, just because a consumer pulls their own credit report, does not mean the CRA's (or anyone for that matter) automatically notify any or all of the collection agencies that have accounts placed on your reports that you the consumer has "recently checked their own report". A collection agency, as the article says above, may have the right to pull an inquiry (hard of soft) on your report to see if any new activity has occured with the consumer, i.e. new address, new phone, new credit, etc. and only then will the CA's be awakened.
A collection agency, as the article says above, may have the right to pull an inquiry (hard of soft) on your report to see if any new activity has occured with the consumer, i.e. new address, new phone, new credit, etc. and only then will the CA's be awakened. That could be costly for them to do arbitrarily on the fly. However, since they have the right, is it not possible that they might be able to purchase/subscribe via a contract as we are, to be notified when there is a "hit" on a particular person's CR? I guess that is what I am wondering about - is that possible. Maybe they can subscribe to a monthly update automatically from the CRB, without having to make an individual request, thus by-passing the Fair Credit Reporting standards of making multiple requests on your file. They might not be "automatically notified", but can they subscribe to that info?
Re: Need Advice..woke up sleeping g John, they cannot subscribe to that information because when a consumer requests his own report it is recorded as a "soft" inquiry which is not reported to anyone except that consumer. In other words, when you pull your own report, by law no one except you will ever know it. Doc
Re: Need Advice..woke up sleeping g Doc, it seems logical to me that my own soft inquiry will not be seen by other creditors or CA's. It also seems logical that CA's will not be able to subscribe to your report. But is it possible that the CRA's sell this information (just the fact that I have pulled a report - meaning that I am alive and at such and such address) to the CA's. I certainly have noticed one difference since I have subscribed to the EQ and EX - There has been an increase in the promotional inquiries and CC offers.
Re: Need Advice..woke up sleeping g Just seems like a lot of people have had the coincidence of pulling their report and then having creditors contacting them. I found this on the experian website. They also mention another product that isn't regulated by the federal rules. http://www.experian.com/products/skip_locator.html I know it mentions inqs. that sound like they would be hard but couldn't this product apply to softs as well?
Re: Need Advice..woke up sleeping g Mandy, Great find! Thanks. It disgusts me that CA's have so many tools available to them. You are right the way they make it sound, it seems like they only do the trigger for hard inquiry. That still does not explain the soft. It is possible they have the trigger set to go off if the inquiry was done directly through the CRA. Obviously, when you request your CR from the CRA, you supply them with all your current information (and previous addresses), now they know you are alive. Just a guess, it is possible that they are not able to get this info if the CR is pulled through another online agency. And according to this service, in case of new address, new account, and new hard inquiry etc., it is a good likelyhood that you will awake a sleeping giant. For the benefit of others, I am cutting and pasting some portion from the link you have sent. Thanks again, Mandy. I did not know this: --------------------------------------------------------- End the search for lost consumers When consumers skip, leaving an unpaid balance, you need a fast and cost-effective way to track them down. Experian's Skip Locator helps you find skip accounts by notifying you when new activity for that customer is reported to Experian. Ideal for in-house collection departments, collection agencies and credit grantors, Skip Locator saves you the time and resources you might otherwise spend searching for skip accounts that have left no trail to follow. Skip Locator is designed to immediately notify you when other credit grantors report new activity about your skip account to Experian. Experian monitors your skip account daily for new information and notifies you within 24 hours when triggering information is reported. This flexible collection support tool lets you make selections from a variety of triggering options. Optional triggering categories New address Triggered when a new address is reported for a skip consumer via trade reporter update, public record update or an inquiry pulled for credit or employment purposes. New employment Triggered when a new employment is reported for a skip consumer, either via a trade reporter update or an inquiry pulled for credit or employment purposes. New account opened Triggered when the skip consumer opens a new account with another credit grantor. Inquiry received Triggered when an inquiry is made on the skip consumer for credit or employment purposes. ---------------------------------------------------------
Re: Need Advice..woke up sleeping g "Inquiry received Triggered when an inquiry is made on the skip consumer for credit or employment purposes." This is the part where I don't know if they are referring to NEW credit or does an AR count? Also they may not advertise every "feature" available for monitoring on the public portion of the website. I was suspicious b/c I only heard from a CA after I started pulling my rpts (6 yr old matter, their 1st contact w/ me) and it seems like that has happened to other people here too. Makes me think that there IS something that can get triggered when there's a consumer disclosure. Maybe it stems from the idea that people interested in their rpts might be prime pickings for collection activity?
Re: Need Advice..woke up sleeping g My cousin recently applied for a credit card and got approved. In doing so, the company she had a charge off with several years ago must have gotten her updated employer info off her Credit Report. Well very soon after she had a garnishment on her paycheck.
Re: Need Advice..woke up sleeping g This additional info is also interesting from that site: When activated, Skip Locator alerts other subscribers to the status of your skip account by displaying an account condition of SCNL on the tradeline of the consumer's Experian Credit Profile Report. In addition, a caution statement displays at the end of the consumer's report. Once you've located your skip account, terminate the service by reporting the account with Status Code 85. This also will remove the SCNL account condition and caution statement. Hence it appears that when the CA has your account noted as SCNL (whatever that means), there is a caution statement at the end of your report. However, you probably would never know unless you happen to pull it while that SCNL account condition exists. Once they get the info they need, they can turn that off (using Status Code 85) and it disappears from your CR, hence you might never know that your account was flagged for a predetermined period of time. PsychDoc, I know you mentioned earlier that "soft hits," inquiries that we do to our own personal CR, doesn't show, but it appears that this tool that EXP is offering might just tip off that an "inquiry" by "someone/anyone" has taken place. Unfortunately, we don't know the exact criteria they actually use, since they only mention some of the more obvious one's like employment, new credit accounts opened, etc. Take a look at this also from that site: Triggering information: contains one or more of the following messages: New address reported New employment reported New account opened Inquiry received-(my statement, doesn't say what type of inquiry) You will receive the new information that triggered the notice, including the full address, employment or complete inquiry as entered by the triggering subscriber. This band also displays the name, address and telephone number of the subscriber that triggered the notice. The other thing is that it appears that the CRB or EXP in this case is covering their end legally by notifying you in the form of a statement on your CR while your account was asked to be monitored by a specific CA. Hence, the CRB is not doing the monitoring per se, the CA that requested it is (the CA is allowed to pull your report as often as they see fit to enable them to do their job). Probably a legal way for them to work around providing info from your report, without you being technically notified, because in essence, you really are.
Re: Need Advice..woke up sleeping g Also, in thinking about this situation, I wonder if New address reported can also mean that when you contact them about faulty addresses being on your report you are in effect reporting a new address. This might be considered an update. Or maybe just asking for the rpt where YOU PROVIDE THEM WITH YOUR ADDRESS to receive the rpt can constitute a "new" address being reported. As for that code that they mention, are they required to let the consumer see it? And what about when they "forget" to deactivate it? So many things are not updated properly on people's rpts, the code could be mishandled as well and maybe that's why some people can't get even a secured card when their rpt looks better. Just a thought...
Re: Need Advice..woke up sleeping g MandyB, It would stand to think that if you 'PROVIDE THEM WITH YOUR ADDRES to receive the rpt ..." they would assume you are providing a new current address for them to send you the report, after all why would you ask them to send a report to a ficticious address that you would not receive. As for the code, it appears from what EXP says on their site, that the CA requesting "any updates" to your file is the one that triggers that code being inserted. The fact that they allow the CA to remove the code once they have obtained the info they want is so that you won't find out so easily unless you pull your report while that code is there. That way you won't be triggered into knowing that anyone is looking for updates on your report for that period of time. At the same time, you were sort of advised that your report was in fact being monitored - great way for them to do a legal CYA. If you don't catch it on the fly, you would never know who was the one asking for this update monitoring that EXP offers their "real" business consumers that generate the majority of their revenue. More than likely, when the CA gets the info they desire, they will quickly ask to have the code removed, I doubt they will leave it there and forget about it. It would be interesting to see what others have to say on this. Of course the one's that really know how all this truly works is EXP and I doubt they will let a regular consumer know as it is a tool they sell to their real revenue generators. There are services that do in fact email the consumer when anyone accesses their report or a change is made or added, but the tools do seem to be stacked in the favor of the CRA's.
Re: Need Advice..woke up sleeping g What I meant was that by giving them your address to get your report, you might be triggering the service for their CA customers. Maybe we're saying the same thing... Re the code, it's just not clear to me what the consumer sees. If the code is not visible to the consumer, it may still be visible to the EX business customers. You're so right. The only ones who really know are EX and their business customers. And I really do believe that there is info that's on the rpt that the consumer doesn't see. I know that it sounds paranoid but it kind of falls in line w/ how TU and EX won't give you your "real" score. There must be factors that are considered in their business customer score that aren't present in the consumer version. And I never received any notifications the entire time I had CE even though companies had accessed my report.
Re: Need Advice..woke up sleeping g What really got me steamed by reading the Experian Skip Tracing product info is the Consumer doesn't really seem to be protected for privacy and the ability for the CRA to still make money. It's too late right now, but I left a vmail at Experian's Special Services Department to ask about their Skip Product and to find out how the consumer is protected. The CA can still pull a report any time but to be notified when the report shows any activity is just SICK! Specially if Experian is making money off of this through Subscription and also since I have OPTED Out that should be enough for me to say I LIKE MY PRIVACY and to not make a buck off of me unless I choose to do business and aproach you. If I owed money and a CA was looking for me than they should just do the old fashioned way of finding me. Sorry just a little steamed.......
Re: Need Advice..woke up sleeping g Yes, I think we are saying the same thing in different words. You might want to check their site, the URL is in this thread and read the marketing product description completely to the bottom (that's where they mention this info I'm talking about) to get a better understanding. The way I understand it, because of the wording, the CA requests that a consumer's CR be flagged and a notation is inserted in the consumer's report. It sounds like you can see that your CR has been tagged - that is if you pull the report while the flag is inserted! However, once the necessary info has been received by the CA, they can electronically request via that code that the flag be removed. It would stand to reason, that if the consumer couldn't see the flag on their report, then it would be no big deal to leave it on the report. They also stress how easy it is to request the flag be removed via the code. To me the wording seems to imply that the flag can be removed so that the consumer might not be tipped off that they are being monitored. Take a look and read the verbage to see if you get the same meaning out of it that I do. I could be wrong. I wonder if EXP will respond back with info to a consumer regarding their Skip Tracing Product, outside of what they have already mentioned on the web site. That would take away some of the clout built in favor of the CA, their true business partners. It will be interesting to see what nugentk2 will discover.
Re: Need Advice..woke up sleeping g "When activated, Skip Locator alerts other subscribers to the status of your skip account by displaying an account condition of SCNL on the tradeline of the consumer's Experian Credit Profile Report. In addition, a caution statement displays at the end of the consumer's report." Okay. I guess I am focusing on how the OTHER SUBSCRIBERS are alerted and I don't know if the consumer sees the caution statement on his/her version of the report. But John, you could be right too b/c maybe the idea is to flag, yet try to keep the consumer from knowing about it by removing the tag quickly. Which kind of leads us to the same conclusion which is that it is difficult for the consumer to know that this is happening. In the time that I have been reading posts here, I haven't seen anyone mention that his/her rpt was shown as flagged. And it would seem that someone would have seen this by now b/c people pull their rpts so frequently. I bet there either won't be an answer or else there will be some vague explanation given to nugentk2. Kind of like how EXP doesn't really explain what their "date of status" means. I have never received a clear answer to this question but I would love to hear what kind of info nugentk2 receives.
Re: Need Advice..woke up sleeping g Well I think that when EXP says: "In addition, a caution statement displays at the end of the consumer's report." it implies being that it is the "consumer's report", that one can see it at the bottom of the report. Maybe this is a new service and they don't have many business subscribers for it yet, maybe it's sort of costly and CA's are not jumping to do this except in certain cases. Remember the CA has to decide if a consumer is worth investing a finite amount of money in order to ultimately collect (they call, they send letters, etc.). It's a business decision, so if the amount they ultimately might collect is not high enough, etc., they might not bother. Any one CA probably has thousands of individuals and companies they are trying to follow through on, so it could be costly. As to why others on the board have not mentioned it, maybe they have not read this thread or it's so new that it has not become obvious. Keep in mind that "obvious" is the operative word. That statement as they say "displays at the end of the consumer's report", probably as some kind of disclaimer. How many times have you read a promotional piece of mail that somewhere on the bottom lists caveats and you never picked up on it untill affected by it or was pointed out to you. I would say most that pull and follow their reports, concentrate on trade line items, which are at the top, the new ones, and don't scrutinize the report in detail each time because it's taken for granted that the rest won't change. Also remember, it's there for only a certain time and then disappears. All factors to consider. It's difficult to be that detailed when pulling 3 reports on a regular basis - see what I mean. Easy to miss, especially if you are not aware. As far as "how the OTHER SUBSCRIBERS are alerted", well more than likely via e-mail, that a change took place and then the specific CA does a pull to view the consumer's CR for the change, update, etc. Yes, it would be nice to hear what nugentk2 finds out, but I am willing to bet that EXP won't disclose every detail of how this product works. I am also willing to bet that the way that flag at the bottom of the report is worded, it does not appear to be a derogatory statement. So if one is applying for credit, it's not like a negative trade line that will be noted. Hence that specific line does not constitute adverse credit reporting which we know is not allowed by the FCRA rules the CRB must adhere to. Sounds like a legal loophole and since they are alerting the consumer at the bottom of the report, they are not hiding anything while it's taking place.
Re: Need Advice..woke up sleeping g Follow UP -----Okay, events as they happened. 1) Left message with Experian, as you all guessed I did have to call back. 2) Experian advised that this is a service they provide and it has a scaled price 3) A flag is put on the particular CA account not on the entire report and it is done behind the scenes 4) The consumer can tell if the flag is there by looking on an account and seeing "SCNL" don't know what that acronym stands for exactly. 5) Contacted FTC they said that it is not an infringement on Privacy at least Federally. It was suggested to contact the AG office in California (my state) and I will do that next. Thought you all would like an update. Personally, I feel that if it is clearly not an infringement of privacy and the CRA can make money on this than the consumer should be able to up the ante for less than a 30 day response from the CRA and CA. This is of course because now we are entering the information age and everyone but the consumer is getting the benefit.
Re: Need Advice..woke up sleeping g Good work calling them back, nugentk2. I agree w/ you that everyone seems to benefit from the information age except the onsumer. The exception I guess is that EQ & EX have the continuously (mostly) viewable rpts online and TU sorta has online access too. So it sounds like sometimes there is that SCNL code on someone's report. I wonder if anyone has seen one? Did they happen to mention if the service is popular?
Re: Need Advice..woke up sleeping g I didn't ask. I could get more info if I spoke to a sales rep, but I would rather spend my time being productive on making a real change. I did call the AG office, but received a series of press this and that not a real person. Will keep trying. I have to say as long as I have the time to pursue this I will. I personally only have one derog paid on my credit report so fortunatly no sleeping dogs, however I would not want all that pressure if I tried to make changes on my report and get bombarded by the CA's. Just not good for anyone. Will keep everyone posted.
