topic Re: Can creditors see your spend on other cards? in General Credit Topics

Can creditors see your spend on other cards?

Anonymous — Wed, 18 Apr 2018 02:52:48 GMT

I think they can see payment amounts, right?

Obviously if they see reported balances on your other accounts they can make determinations based off of those, but I think they can also see payment amounts. So, even if your reported balance is say a 2-digit amount every cycle for a certain lender, if they see you paying a 4-digit amount every cycle they can infer that your spend is in the thousands. Does that sound correct?

I'm talking strictly about what one of your creditors can see from a credit report pull regarding your other creditors. Naturally there are exceptions, like my banking is through Chase so they can see exactly what I pay monthly to all of my other creditors since I use my Chase checking account to pay all of them.

Re: Can creditors see your spend on other cards?

UpperNwGuy — Wed, 18 Apr 2018 02:55:40 GMT

Interesting question. I have always wondered what the banks see when they pull my credit reports. I suspect it is not the same thing that I see when I get my free copy.

Re: Can creditors see your spend on other cards?

MrDisco99 — Wed, 18 Apr 2018 02:57:57 GMT

I'm pretty sure they just see closing balances, not actual purchases from other issuers.

Re: Can creditors see your spend on other cards?

Anonymous — Wed, 18 Apr 2018 03:09:38 GMT

Yea they only see what your balance is after your statement closes

Re: Can creditors see your spend on other cards?

K-in-Boston — Wed, 18 Apr 2018 03:11:25 GMT

On full reports that we as consumers can see, last payment due and last payment amount both show. Not sure if this visible to creditors, but it’s rumored to factor into newer credit scoring models.

Re: Can creditors see your spend on other cards?

Anonymous — Wed, 18 Apr 2018 04:03:15 GMT

@MrDisco99I'm pretty sure they just see closing balances, not actual purchases from other issuers.

They see closing balances of course and not purchases, but if they can see payments, then can make inferences. I'm pretty sure they can see payment amounts. I think it's on my TU report where I can see all of my monthly payment amounts, not sure about the other 2B.

Closing balances may be small, say $100, but if someone is running their balance up to say $4000 and then paying it down to $100 or whatever reports, if a creditor can see that a $4k payment was made, they can then make inferences about purchases.

Re: Can creditors see your spend on other cards?

Gmood1 — Wed, 18 Apr 2018 07:17:26 GMT

Depending on what the creditors report, will determine what they can see and how soon you pay it. If I pay before the statement date. Sometimes those payments aren't reported. If I let the statement close and then pay. I'm almost guaranteed it will report what I paid.

Re: Can creditors see your spend on other cards?

Anonymous — Wed, 18 Apr 2018 13:17:16 GMT

Interesting stuff.

I bank with Chase, so I know they see just about everything. I always wonder what they think when they see me making a $9000 CC payment to Citi from my Chase checking account during times where my Chase CCs only see a small swipe or two during a cycle.

Re: Can creditors see your spend on other cards?

Anonymous — Wed, 18 Apr 2018 15:09:48 GMT

The folks who are saying that a creditor can only see the monthly reported balance are well intentioned, but not quite right. They would have indeed been right for most of the history of the three bureaus. But as BBS and some others are aware, the bureaus began collecting what are called trended data a few years ago. (I am unsure the exact date, and different bureaus started at different times. But by 2013 all three were collecting it.)

TD include (among many other things) the date and amount of every payment that you made for the preceding 24 months. Not all CC issuers are submitting payment data, but quite a few do.

So the answer is: if a given CC issuer has been submitting these data, then all of the other creditors can see it.

That's true in principle, but they would need to purchase (or develop in house) specialized data analysis tools to meaningfully use those data in their decisions. I.e. a manual reviewer can see the payment history if one has been given, but what a CC issuer wants is a computerized tool. E.g. if it sees that you are a high spender with a competitor, maybe it targets you aggressively for one of its cards.

Re: Can creditors see your spend on other cards?

Gmood1 — Wed, 18 Apr 2018 20:08:51 GMT

Most banking institution I've dealt with don't mix the bank account and loan departments. So the loan side doesn't see, nor do they factor in what you have in their savings or checking accounts when it comes to extending credit. Maybe Chase is different?
I've seen some of that trended data y'all mention. But again, not all of the creditors do this. I wouldn't count on it, If you pay before the statement closes.
Also if you allow statements to cut before paying. You'll see a total amount owed for that month. If you pay before statements cut, that amount will be less than what you actually owed for that given month.

Those of us that have more than three different creditors, can easily see what's going on and what's being reported.

Re: Can creditors see your spend on other cards?

Anonymous — Wed, 18 Apr 2018 20:24:47 GMT

Good point above by CGID regarding trended data.

Re: Can creditors see your spend on other cards?

HeavenOhio — Thu, 19 Apr 2018 15:26:23 GMT

On my reports, I can see that the actual payment amounts mentioned by CGID aren't reported by Capital One, Chase, or AMEX. As mentioned in another topic, AMEX doesn't even report that you've made a payment. The other two banks show the date of last payment.

Barclays, on the other hand, submits payment amounts each month. A couple of my closed cards (CareCredit and a Wells Fargo retail card) show that information too.

Re: Can creditors see your spend on other cards?

Anonymous — Thu, 19 Apr 2018 16:11:58 GMT

It definitely sounds very lender-specific at this point then.

Re: Can creditors see your spend on other cards?

Anonymous — Thu, 19 Apr 2018 17:46:51 GMT

A nice discussion thread could be made out of somebody explaining in the first post....

* what trended data are

* how they consist of several comparatively recent items (reported balance, CL, payment amount, date of payment amount) for the preceding 24 months

* why it would matter if most CC issuers were submitting full TD (transactor/revolver distinction being just one)

* the fact that a number of CC issuers do not submit the payment data (though some are)

Then solicit people who have recently pulled their reports via ACR to post their results, with the discussion being summarized/updated in post #2 periodically by the thread owner.

The rules would be to indicate the bureau you pulled it from, the date of the report, and then which TD are being given for each CC issuer.

Be nice to have a single go-to thread that gives the most recent info on what issuers are reporting what TD.