Would it be a little disconcerting to realize that our vaunted credit bureaus are just shyster sales people like every one else?
Well, first, they’re the ones giving your information to companies so they can send you junk mail. It’s easy to tell them to stop. You just have to know that they’re the one’s doing it.
We’re closing in on our house. The finance guy we’ve been working with for a year, Jeff, ran our credit last month, and again today. Rick’s credit was unchanged….mine was unchanged, except for the Transunion report…it had dropped 30 points for no apparent reason. Jeff couldn’t find a reason for it anywhere.
I called Transunion. Got a hold of an ESL customer service rep from India. Couldn’t understand a thing she said, except that, somehow, it was Jeff’s fault. If they don’t plug the “right thing” in they’ll get a rating that’s different from your actual score. I got the impression that NO finance company ever gets your actual score.
I asked her to send me my score. She said there was a charge. I said, I knew that I could get one free, once a year. She muttered something unintelligible…then launched into her sales pitch. Something about I was eligible for this one time deal that would allow me to get my score for free AND I could receive weekly newsletter and shit from them, all for free, and all they needed was my debit or credit card number!
I said, “If it’s free why do you need my number?”
“Something something double talk….”
I said, “No thank you.”
She kept trying to get me to suck into whatever.
I finally all but hung up on her.
I never found out a damn thing about what could have happened to drop me 30 points.
I was purely disgusted.
What are your thoughts about it? It seems vaguely illegal to me…
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You are entitled to a free credit report annually from each of the three credit reporting bureaus. Some states give you more than that. But under federal law, you get one free report from each agency annually. If you are rejected for credit, for whatever reason, you are entitled to an additonal free report.
Document each and every conversation you have with any and everyone in regards to this. Note the date, person you spoke to or their ID number and even the time of day. Take notes about the conversation.
https://www.annualcreditreport.com/cra/index.jsp
Thanks @bkcunningham. It was just frustrating to talk to a human being who only wanted to sell something to me…
@Dutchess III, it is truly very frustrating to talk to a human being as such. Unfortunately, most of the companies now hire call centers to take care of their customer inquiries to the disadvantage of the clients like us. Even if we are entitled for a free credit report annually, they will still insist on certain offers to get the reports that we have to pay for. @bkcunningham is right is saying that you should take note and record of all your conversation with these people.
You know, you can’t even call the credit companies to try and get something corrected. I may have said this already, but they are actually the ones selling your information to the companies who send you all the junk mail. You can request them to stop…it’s called an “opt out.” I did that about a year ago, and our snail mail junk mail has slowed considerably. Not the email junk mail though. Something’s wrong there…
BTW….I did get my free annual report from Transunion, no sweat, no gimmicks. Just go to whichever credit bureau, follow the links and viola! It was printing out on my printer within a couple of minutes.
@Dutchess III that is good to hear. I have noticed the ads of Transunion for a free credit report at Yahoo!Mail. Cheers.
By law you get one free from each of the bureaus. When I was getting my transunion one, I saw where they suggested spacing out each request by several months, rather than getting all three at once.
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