I have a friend that applied for a Home Depot CC and put in their federal tax ID # in place of where the SS # should go. They got a denial based on: " derogatory credit obligations of personal guarantor, personal guarantor's delinquent account(s) written off by creditor(s)". They pulled D&B and TRW Business Credit Services. I know that TRW is Experian. On their EX credit report is shows the inquiry from Experian Bus Prof. GE Capital Financial is who Home Depot is with. I know that they violated the FCRA on pulling a CR without permissable purpose, because they didn't put in their SS. I know that D&B does not have to adhere to the same FCRA standards dealing with businesses, but HOW do they have the capabilities to cross reference unless they got the SS # from D&B. Like I said, I know that they are in violation, but with D&B is it even harder to pin them on the violation? Thanks in advance for ya'lls help. Charlie
You can pull a credit report with name and address or name and DOB. They did have permissible purpose.
The phase "personal guarantor" in the reason codes is the key. The ftc back-pedalled its view on this when it wrote the Tatelbaum2 staff opinion letter. Basically , the ftc said that if a personal guarantee is part of the business application, then a permissible purpose/reason to pull personal credit exist. see link; www.ftc.gov/os/statutes/fcra/tatelbaum2.htm VJ
