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     | Wednesday, March 29, 2000 - 04:25 pm  When you obtain a copy of your credit report through Q Space, does it show up as a consumer disclosure (as it would if I went straight to the credit reporting agency) or does it show up as an inquiry (and lower my FICO score)? Thanks so much!
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| | Thursday, March 30, 2000 - 05:52 am This is my Qspace experience. Ordered a three-agency merged report in November. Each of the bureaus counted it as a charged inquiry. On four occasions, I've tried to contact QSpace about this because it does not clearly spell out the potential harm to your score on its Web site. Three times, QSpace ignored my emails. On one occasion, it responded by saying I was wrong that its inquiries counted as charged inquiries. No amount of patient explanation on my part has had any effect on QSpace. If you order an online report from QSpace through Experian, it does not appear to show on your credit report as a charged inquiry. But if you order the merged report, which comes in the mail, the inquiries get posted as though you are applying for a loan from QSpace. Note that I said it does not "appear" to be a charged inquiry
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| | Thursday, March 30, 2000 - 08:58 am When I ordered my Experian report through QSpace it showed up with other routine account maintenance and pre-approved offers, not the FICO lowering type. If the merged report did count as a loan application and you have to take the full hit of an inquiry, then I hope they were good enough to give you your credit score and reason codes.
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| | Thursday, March 30, 2000 - 09:39 am Your experience with QSpace/Experian is the same as mine. I suspect the inquiries aren't charged unless you order the merged report, but can't say for certain. And no, they were not good enough to give me my credit score and reason codes in the merged report. Nor have they shown any inclination to delete the inquiries after I complained.
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| | Thursday, March 30, 2000 - 09:51 am What procedure does QSpace give for correcting errors? Do you write to them, or the national repositories? Will they accept telephone calls to resolve incorrect entries? Do they give the national repositories' toll-free numbers? Are the national repositories subject to the FCRA rules (for discussing the report with the consumer) if the report is obtained through a third party such as QSpace?
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| | Thursday, March 30, 2000 - 11:44 am Greg: QSpace apparently has no procedure in place for correcting errors because it insists I'm reading my credit reports wrong. According to QSpace, their inquiries are "soft" and do not count against the score. The Big 3 disagree. Each has told me the inquries are charged. None of them has the typical PRM or AR or AM notation. TransUnion, on its report, even has a special notation that QSpace had a "permissible purpose" to pull the file. One point I made with QSpace was that I considered it a purveyor of credit reports, not a lender. This fell on deaf ears. The company still insists the inquiries are "soft," despite what the Big 3 say and the reports themselves show. I explained to the Big 3 the precise nature of my business transaction with QSpace. They still wouldn't take it off. QSpace, I believe, should make it perfectly clear to consumers who buy a merged report that the act of pulling the file will result in an inquiry. I wouldn't recommend QSpace as a broker if you can't afford the inquiry. Because I went car shopping last month, six inquiries now dot my file. TransUnion now posts a special note in my file that reads: "Input SSN has been used (006) times in the last 30 days on different inquiries." So, because I used QSpace a couple of months prior to my car-shopping trip, I now have a recent inquiry on top of the inquiries for the car. Add to that an inquiry from a credit-card company that offered me a better rate and my file now looks like I'm desperately applying for credit. It just irks me.
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| | Thursday, March 30, 2000 - 12:13 pm This is why I like this board! I definitely will not buy a credit report from Qspace. Sounds like they don't have their act together.
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| | Thursday, March 30, 2000 - 05:23 pm I wouldn't just fold up and blow away on this issue. Here's a short quote from the FCRA: "These procedures shall require that prospective users of the information identify themselves, certify the purposes for which the information is sought, and certify that the information will be used for no other purpose." Just because Qspace has said they have a permissible purpose is not enough. You should press further by asking the big 3 and Qspace exactly what did Qspace claim the permissible purpose to be? Is there evidence to suggest that they used the information for a purpose other than what they certified? If they claim the permissible purpose was extension of credit and no such credit has been extended to you, then haven't you been denied credit? This would also bring the Equal Credit Opportunity Act into play. Don't give up and don't let them get away without answering your questions in full.
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| | Thursday, March 30, 2000 - 06:05 pm If you order your credit reports from any source other then the credit reporting agencies directly, then one should expect an inquiry. If I log on a website and click "Request my Credit" then I assume that it will result in an inquiry. Any source outside the CRA is purchasing the information, paying for it and it is logged. If someone applies for their credit reports with us, we have it in plain english on the order form, This request will result in an inquiry and you are giving us a permissable purpose. Does Qspace's form not say that? If it doesn't, I would still expect an inquiry from any outside source. Especially when I initiated the transaction.
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| | Friday, March 31, 2000 - 05:07 am Kristi: I admire the work you do and the thoughtful responses you post on this board and others. I respectfully disagree with your assertion that "one should expect an inquiry" if one orders a credit report from any source other than the Big 3. When I ordered my merged QSpace report, I believed, as a consumer, that I was ordering from a source that had permission from the Big 3 to act as their agent. Translation: I believed no charged inquiry would result and that my file would show only a consumer disclosure -- as if I'd ordered separate reports from the Big 3 themselves. My purpose of ordering the merged report was convenience. QSpace's merged service costs only a couple of dollars more than ordering separate reports from the Big 3 and one gets the added benefit of having the info arrive in the same package. I invite you to visit the QSpace site. Please click on the prompt to look at a sample of the merged report. You'll note in the inquiries section of the report what appears to be a charged TransUnion inquiry from QSpace itself. This makes me believe that QSpace was being disingenuous to me when it insisted its inquiries were "soft" when I complained. The evidence they are charged inquiries appears to be in the very sample of a merged report the company posts online. My own credit reports -- ordered from the Big 3 themselves -- bear this out. Further, I'd like to invite you to go to the QSpace order page for the merged report and read the disclosure at the bottom of the page. (I'd reproduce it here, but don't want to have it claimed that I violated a copyright.) I've carefully read the small print one must agree to when ordering a merged report from QSpace. Unless I'm reading it wrong, nowhere does it say a charged inquiry will appear in the files of a person who orders a merged report. The bottom line: My reports make it appear as though I'd applied for a loan from QSpace when all I really did was order a credit report from a company I believed had the autority of the Big 3 to act as their agent for convenience sake. Finally, I'd like to congratulate you for making it clear to your customers that the use of certain of your services will result in inquiries. I did not use QSpace as an agent to help me repair my credit. Nor did I apply for a loan. I simply ordered a merged credit report.
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| | Friday, March 31, 2000 - 06:26 am I've asked a couple of these companies (including QSpace) about this issue, and have NEVER gotten an answer. My advice: be cynical, and be prudent. Consider the "worst case" scenario if you are concerned about FICO scores. EVEN IF you are 100% right, after the "damage" is done, it's a nightmare to fix it. Kinda like being hit by a bus in the crosswalk...even if you are in the "right", you still are crunched.
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| | Friday, March 31, 2000 - 06:27 am Point well taken Maurice. I have taken a look at their page and it does not seem as conspicuous as ours. I too, believe they should have an additional inquiry release that states clearly; it will result in an inquiry. I think your interpretation of the disclaimer is as many other interpretate it, that the company may be an extension of the bureaus or an agent. However, Big 3 are for-profit companies like any other business. I suppose I have been at this so long that it seems obvious to me that one would assume he is getting an inquiry when requesting ones credit. You are right though; many people may think QSpace is different because credit reports are all they do. The other thing I do not think is wise by QSpace is that you said they claimed it to be “soft”. An inquiry is an inquiry and unless I am unaware, no entities except your current creditors who periodically review your credit have access to adding only a soft inquiry. Seems like QSpace needs to be a little more obvious.
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| | Friday, March 31, 2000 - 07:14 am Yesterday, a newspaper reporter writing a personal finance column interviewed me about the subject of this piece: Gartner Says Online Lending Industry Needs to Correct Credit Scoring Methods Internet Users Can Damage Their Credit Scores by Inquiring About Loans Online http://gartner11.gartnerweb.com/public/static/aboutgg/pressrel/pr032700.html She said that (before this came out) she was paralyzed, recently, in shopping for a refinance, fearing that her efforts would lead to a decrease in her score.
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| | Friday, March 31, 2000 - 07:45 am Greg- you need a password in order to access that article - could you copy it to your site and post a link?
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| | Friday, March 31, 2000 - 08:23 am I just tried it on another computer, with two different browsers-- no password needed. Try this: http://gartner11.gartnerweb.com/public/static/aboutgg/pressrel/pr032700.html
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| | Friday, March 31, 2000 - 09:26 am Sean's comments posted above may prove helpful on this issue. I'll draft a few letters this weekend and send them certified on Monday. The URL Greg posted raises some interesting questions. Responsible consumers who want to shop around for the best rates don't seem to have adequate protections and seem to be suffering penalties for exercising prudence.
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| | Friday, March 31, 2000 - 01:20 pm I use http://www.consumerinfo.com/ to access my Experian credit report. I can assure you that all inquiries they place on my credit profile do not affect my score and are not shown to lenders. Every business has an obligation to provide a full disclosure of all relevant facts a person might need to know about their service. Otherwise consumers can't make an informed decision.
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| | Friday, March 31, 2000 - 01:57 pm YES, BUT THAT PLAN REQUIRES THAT YOU JOIN THE CREDIT MONITORING PLAN RIGHT? I don't think everyone wants that just to get their credit reports.
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| | Wednesday, June 21, 2000 - 08:21 am I ordered my merged credit report from www.credit411.com, and it specifically says on their web site in the FAQs section: "When a consumer requests his or her credit report, it is considered a consumer disclosure and does not affect any FICO scores and is not recorded as an inquiry that can be viewed by future creditors." *However* - I forgot that I once signed up for AOL's Credit Alert service. I got a statement from them the other day listing credit411.com as a "real" inquiry. I am about to start disputing this with credit411.com (I'm waiting on some reports). I also ordered the quickie online Experian report from qspace recently. I haven't seen my files since that, so I don't know if it shows as a charged inquiry.
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| | Wednesday, June 21, 2000 - 12:03 pm I once wrote to consumerinfo.com to verify that it didn't show as inquiry and I didn't get a response.
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| | Wednesday, June 21, 2000 - 06:19 pm Consumerinfo.com does not show up as an inquiry and PrivacyGuard.com gives you a triple-merged report and it doesn't get charged. I use PrivacyGuard.
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| | Wednesday, June 21, 2000 - 07:07 pm Thanks again.
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