I have an OC who got a judgment against me in June 2001. They pulled a hard inquiry in October 2002. Is this legal. I thought they could only pull soft AR (account review) pull. I have just recently filed a motion a to vacate the judgement and saw they had pulled. Any help would be great
Interesting situation! 1. There is no distinction between a hard and soft inquiry, and basically, if you owe someone money they can pull your report, BUT: Here's an FCRA opinion letter: http://www.ftc.gov/os/statutes/fcra/greenblt.htm In the 1990 Commentary on the FCRA, the Federal Trade Commission ("Commission") stated that "[t]he possibility that a party may be involved in litigation involving a consumer does not provide a permissible purpose for that party to receive a consumer report on such consumer . . . because litigation is not a 'business transaction' involving the consumer." 16 C.F.R. § 600 App., 55 Fed. Reg. 18804, 18816 (May 4, 1990). This statement extends to all aspects of litigation, including the pre-litigation discussions and settlement preparations that you describe, and was not altered by the recent amendments to the statute. Now, you just have to prove why they pulled it. Have they ever pulled one before?
thanks for the reply. I have not actually filed to vacate yet. They pulled in OCt 1992. The opinion letter is awesome.
If they pulled it before you filed, then that part of letter I posted doesn't apply. They would have had a pp to pull since they had a judgement against you (collection of a debt). Sorry. But its still an awesome opinion letter
reading more closely, it might affect the situation. It states that they can pull the report with customer inintiation or account review. Account review or AR is a soft pull. This a hard pull. It goes on to say, "..legitimate business purposes." What would those be? Also, "If the brokerage firm misrepresents to a consumer reporting agency that it is requesting consumer reports pursuant to Section 604(a)(3)(F), however, and instead uses the reports in connection with the settlement discussions you describe, the firm is in violation of the FCRA. These are settlement actions after the judgement. I could be way off. Any help would appreciated.
1. In October 2002 you had not filed a motion to vacate, they had a legal judgment thus they could pull. 2. AR is a soft pull, but it is a CRA term. The FCRA makes no distinction between a hard and a soft pull. Only between inquiries, and promotional inquiries. They could make a hard pull.
Agaib, thanks for the information. I am jsut starting to understand some of these opinion letters and the ins and the outs of the FCRA. I am looking specifically where it says anything about judgments, legal, etc. I just want to be 100%. I appreciate all your input.
Once an OC has a judgment against you, the court has given them the right to collect a certain amount of money + interest. They are allowed to look at your CRs, they are allowed to request financial statements and they are allowed to seek more aggressive methods of collecting their money, i.e. wage garnishement, etc. If they had viewed the file in response to the motion to vacate, perhaps you'd have an issue, but I don't see any way the Greenblat letter applies to your situation.
