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     | Tuesday, December 05, 2000 - 05:52 am  I got a letter yesterday from Trans Union regarding a disputed inquiry. Basically they said a lender does not need my signature to view my report only a permissable purpose. And that if I still felt that someone ran my report without a permissable purpose to take it up with them because they would not investigate. Is this in violation of the FCRA? And the whole point is I don't know who CREDCO is so how would I possibly know how to contact them to tell them to notify the CRA that they did not have the right to run my report? Explain this to me someone.
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| | Tuesday, December 05, 2000 - 06:03 am Did you apply for a car loan or lease? Last July, I applied for financing from a Suzuki dealership (I eventually ended up leasing from Isuzu), and the inquiry showed up as being from CREDCO.
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| | Tuesday, December 05, 2000 - 06:55 am I applied for a car loan and Credco showed up, but they looked at my report two months in a row...
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| | Tuesday, December 05, 2000 - 07:08 am No. I haven't stepped foot in a dealership in 5 years. That is another thing, these companies need to be allowed to run these reports once, not twice or every month until they get tired. MCI ran my report 3 times in a row and I applied for one cell phone, one time. And I still think the CRA is shirking on its responsibility to investigate under the FCRA when they refuse to look into a simple inquiry dispute.
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| | Tuesday, December 05, 2000 - 08:41 am I have noticed that HRS runs my report almost monthly. I went into a collections situation with them because they weren't properly applying payments to my account in a timely fashion. I settled with a collection agency representing them a few years back (Now I know better). Now all these idiots do is run my report. Does anybody think they do it on purpose?
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| | Tuesday, December 05, 2000 - 09:10 am What kind of inquiry is it showing up as? If it is not in some sort of account maintenance system, it is probably a computer generated thing that is hurting your scores. Discover used to run my report every other month for 2 years as I paid off a charged-off account with them but it was not a ding on my report because it was for "account maintenance" as the CRAs call it. AT&T was the same thing. MCI's three hits were not as "Account Maintenance" and are hurting my scores.
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| | Tuesday, December 05, 2000 - 05:23 pm The CRA's will give you phone numbers for the companies that pulled your credit. Get that info and contact those companies ASAP. If you did not give them permission to obtain your file, it is unlawful for them to do so and they will remove the inquiry simply on that premise.
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| | Tuesday, December 05, 2000 - 05:37 pm You are misinformed. You do not need someone's permission to run a report on them. All you need is a permissible purpose as defined under the Fair Credit Reporting Act. I pull credit reports on people all the time without their permission and often without their knowledge.
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| | Tuesday, December 05, 2000 - 06:23 pm Okay, then I guess I am misunderstanding "permissible purpose". Can you please explain that to me?
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| | Wednesday, December 06, 2000 - 06:25 am What is a permissable purpose?
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| | Wednesday, December 06, 2000 - 06:31 am I guess at this point I should ask the question as pointedly as I can before this becomes a sloppy thread back and forth about permissable purposes and the intent of my question is lost. How do I get the credit bureau to investigate a dispute of an inquiry, period. And is the original letter they sent refusing to investigate the dispute, within their rights?
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| | Wednesday, December 06, 2000 - 06:58 am To: Anonymous1 There is a sleazy tactic called "poisoning" which some collectors and agencies do. Basically, they pull numerous "hard" reports to lower your score.
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| | Wednesday, December 06, 2000 - 07:59 am Patricia, The CRA's won't investigate inquiries because they are reporting factual data. Your credit was in fact pulled by a company if the inquiry is on your file so now we have to decide whether they had "permissible purpose" to do so. With my own file, I have had several inquiries removed by contacting those companies who made the inquiry and demanding they be removed. There are several different reasons a company would make an inquiry and your credit report will reflect those reasons. It is my understanding that inquiries made for consumer disclosure, "skip tracing" and solicitation purposes do not show up when a potential creditor pulls your file. They only show on the file requested by the consumer. Whether or not this affects the overall score, I don't know. "Permissible purpose" is defined by the FCRA (check it out, sorry no link) and if the inquiries made don't follow that criteria, dispute them right away with those companies.
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| | Wednesday, December 06, 2000 - 08:20 am Patricia, Here's a link: http://www.ftc.gov/os/statutes/fcra.htm See section 604 (If it hadn't been so verbose, I would have pasted it here.) regards, dave
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| | Wednesday, December 06, 2000 - 10:54 am I will take your advice and contact these guys directly. I have to get Trans Union to turn over the contact info first since my problem was I have no idea who these guys are. I don't currently have anyone after me for money owed so it is a puzzle. Will the CRA give me the information over the phone?
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| | Wednesday, December 06, 2000 - 11:13 am Patricia, It might be easier to just 'cut-to-the-chase'. Credco is almost certainly First American CREDCO, of Poway, CA. This link will take you to a web page that shows an 800 phone number for them: http://www.facredco.com/Consumer_Assistance-Main.htm Please continue to keep us 'posted'. regards, dave
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| | Wednesday, December 06, 2000 - 11:52 am Sofa King: What can I do about this lame attempt to further destroy my slow but rebuilding credit? This sucks!
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| | Wednesday, December 06, 2000 - 11:56 am The permissible purposes are: 604(a) Extension of, review of, or collection of a credit account. (b) Employment purposes (requires prior consent) (c) Insurance underwriting (d) Legal purposes/child support/licensing/etc. (e) Purchase of existing credit obligation (f) Legitimate business need, like rental application, to open a checking account or other situations where credit information is important but a loan is not being made. ****************************************** Scenario 1: I loan you $50.00 and when I come back later to ask for it (a few months) you've moved. I would have a permissible purpose to check your credit under 604(a) for collection purposes. I don't need your consent. ****************************************** Scenario 2: You buy a house and ask the sellers to carry back a 10% second to help you get into the house. Six months later they come to me trying to sell that second for whatever they can get. I'd run a credit check on you with 604(e) as a permissible purpose. I don't need your consent.
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| | Wednesday, December 06, 2000 - 04:12 pm Exactly, Shylock. Funny thing is I had inquiries on my file where the companies had NO "permissible purpose" for inquiring. I had them removed.
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| | Wednesday, December 06, 2000 - 06:04 pm Anonymous1- Have you written a clear, concise letter directly to the agency, outlining your concerns? Have you told them their numerous inquiries may have the affect of lowering your scores?
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| | Thursday, December 07, 2000 - 11:27 am CREDCO FTC Order: Here is a link to the FTC site where CREDCO's Consent Order is published. The FTC has gone after them for the same violations of the FCRA you mention. http://www.ftc.gov/os/1998/9810/9523267cmp.htm for more info on them go to the FTC site and when you are in "actions" do a search under CREDCO. http://www.ftc.gov/os/1998/9810/9523267cmp.htm http://www.ftc.gov/search?NS-search-page=results
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| | Friday, December 08, 2000 - 08:38 am This is real interesting. CREDCO was sued for not investigating disputes on the MERGED mortgage credit reports they provide. I didn't see anything about unauthorized inquiries though. http://www.ftc.gov/os/1998/9810/9523267cmp.htm On 1/27/99 http://www.ftc.gov/os/1999/9908/faresorder.htm the FTC ordered CREDCO to comply with the FCRA. I've used CREDCO for a while, I also was not happy with their services. Those RMCRs are expensive, usually $50+, because of the extra work (disputes) involved. All I remember from previous discussion on unauthorized inquiries is somebody once posted that it's not considered a big deal by courts. It should be, with FICO Scoring using those inquiries to lower Credit Scores. If anyone would like to sue, they should publicly state so. Nothing's going to happen until you sue.
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