Beware of Discover pre-approval page !

[trusty]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I've got a recent story from myself similar to your circumstance, although not Discover.

I was seeing CreditKarma's loan prequalification that says "doesn't affect your score" so I gave it a try. Apparently no hard inquiries added to EQ/TU/EX, but the next week or so I ordered a copy of my LexisNexis full file disclosure, and there was a hard inquiry due to the loan prequalification check (matching date, matching company, etc).

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You can also opt out of LexisNexis, but then banks will start to ask, "who dat...?" and begin to wonder if you actually exist, at all. Talk about a dystopian society... standing in front of someone that will trust a for profit computer database - with glee - over their own two eyes.

[Anonymous]

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@trusty wrote:

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You can also opt out of LexisNexis, but then banks will start to ask, "who dat...?" and begin to wonder if you actually exist, at all. Talk about a dystopian society... standing in front of someone that will trust a for profit computer database - with glee - over their own two eyes.

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As much as it pains me to say this, but the third party reporting agencies work really well for most people who aren't rebuilding, and opting out can have long term negative results when you're out of rebuild mode.

The truth is, creditors already know there is some fudge in those reports, because they're pulling data millions of times a year, so an average person's report, on average, will already include some screwy data.

It's just another reminder to all of us (me specifically) to stay on top of payments, don't excessively seek unnecessary credit, and don't assume you can game the system for as long as it will game you.

There are dozens of consumer credit reporting agencies.  You can't stay ahead of all of them, and the banks will close loopholes as fast as they find them.  The best loopholes aren't public, of course.  People protect those secrets like gold bullion.

[arkane]

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@trusty wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

I've got a recent story from myself similar to your circumstance, although not Discover.

I was seeing CreditKarma's loan prequalification that says "doesn't affect your score" so I gave it a try. Apparently no hard inquiries added to EQ/TU/EX, but the next week or so I ordered a copy of my LexisNexis full file disclosure, and there was a hard inquiry due to the loan prequalification check (matching date, matching company, etc).

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You can also opt out of LexisNexis, but then banks will start to ask, "who dat...?" and begin to wonder if you actually exist, at all. Talk about a dystopian society... standing in front of someone that will trust a for profit computer database - with glee - over their own two eyes.

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To be fair, from their perspective I can see how this could be highly suspicious -- who is this person that's presenting me with all these IDs and docs, but somehow doesn't seem to exist in any of our systems? Are these all fradulent IDs? Is this guy an identity thief? 

[trusty]

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@arkane wrote:

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To be fair, from their perspective I can see how this could be highly suspicious -- who is this person that's presenting me with all these IDs and docs, but somehow doesn't seem to exist in any of our systems? Are these all fradulent IDs? Is this guy an identity thief? 

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I agree, if there's actually a preponderance of missing data, across all sources. But, that's just the thing. You still have Chex, you still have, Equifax, Experian, and Transunion... not to mention all the public County Records, that inexplicably no one seems to use... by the way, available to anyone and everyone, right online. But, since we can't get a hold of this one LexisNexis or SageStream report... poof, you must have vanished off the face of the earth... this morning before you came into this branch that we're about to shut down to go all digital. 

Poppycock, I say. We now need a common sense law that you cannot rely on a single broken, non-government database, to summarily declare - without merit - that someone doesn't exist. Or, how about just a law stating that people cannot aggregate other people's data for profit, without their prior consent. 

Well, at least we know why they spend all those ill-gotten gains lobbying to Not get shut down after repeatedly losing all of our data to hackers.

[Anonymous]

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@trusty wrote:

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@arkane wrote:

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To be fair, from their perspective I can see how this could be highly suspicious -- who is this person that's presenting me with all these IDs and docs, but somehow doesn't seem to exist in any of our systems? Are these all fradulent IDs? Is this guy an identity thief? 

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I agree, if there's actually a preponderance of missing data, across all sources. But, that's just the thing. You still have Chex, you still have, Equifax, Experian, and Transunion... not to mention all the public County Records, that inexplicably no one seems to use... by the way, available to anyone and everyone, right online. But, since we can't get a hold of this one LexisNexis or SageStream report... poof, you must have vanished off the face of the earth... this morning before you came into this branch that we're about to shut down to go all digital. 

Poppycock, I say. We now need a common sense law that you cannot rely on a single broken, non-government database, to summarily declare - without merit - that someone doesn't exist. Or, how about just a law stating that people cannot aggregate other people's data for profit, without their prior consent. 

Well, at least we know why they spend all those ill-gotten gains lobbying to Not get shut down after repeatedly losing all of our data to hackers.

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Competition of bureaus is what makes credit building easy.

If we had just one company providing credit data, it would be nearly impossible.

I know approximately which bureaus each lender users, so if I know I have a dirty profile at one, I avoid those lenders.  This gives me endless options to acquire credit even with a bad report or two.  I went from $0 credit in 2017 to $22,800 (almost all of it prime credit) by analyzing what lenders use/pull and maximizing my approval odds.

If there was only one credit report agency, we'd all be trapped in the same identical process.

I prefer the way it is today.  If I am denied because of a bad report, I am free to clean up that report, fix incorrect reports, and learn how to maximize my score on that report using the skills and tools I have.  ANYONE can do this if I can do it.

[trusty]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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Competition of bureaus is what makes credit building easy.

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Ain't that the truth? I just opened some new accounts in the last few months, and one of them doesn't even show up yet on all three majors. The rest don't show up on Equifax, at all. I mean, I can apply with lenders that utilize Equifax, as if I have never even opened nary a new account. 

All things considered, I still don't think companies like LexisNexis should be allowed to sell public records, that are otherwise freely obtainable.

By the way, interestingly... you cannot opt out of the LexisNexis Insurance Report. That's one baby that they will by no means come off of. But, the reasoning behind this is simple. You can't have people routinely burning down houses to claim the insurance... which some people used to do, when they could get away with it. Now, if you have a total loss on your report more than once, you'll most probably get sorted with the rest of the con-artist, charlatan crew.

Getting back on topic, in many ways, I think obtaining credit is easier than it used to be, in the days of the manual review. But, if you're not in the bank's preferred system, it can be a lot worse. It's hard to find a bank employee that has the presence of mind to actually defer to another credit bureau, for instance. Plus, with the hard inquiry hurting the scoring, albeit slightly, there's a real incentive for consumers to freeze at least a few bureaus at a time. There seems to be very little middle ground. You're either gaming, or you are the game. 

[trusty]

By the way, here's a good list of consumer reporting agencies, directly from the CFPB. For those of us that are anal about monitoring our data footprint, you'll want to check each and every one of these... for accuracy. It's surprising how much misprinted information simply gets parroted from one agency to the next. For instance, I have a recurring phone number showing up on my Equifax, for example, with an area code that doesn't even exist. But, some agent probably just punched in a bunch of numbers, at one point, to fill out an internal form attached to my name... and now I've been dealing with deleting the same obviously fake phone number, over and over again. Equifax actually told me to send in documents, instead of just trying to call the number, or looking the number up - or otherwise using common sense, that the same number over and over again does not a phone number make. I guess it didn't help that - in a fit - I told them to change it to the Equifax 866 number. lol

http://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/201604_cfpb_list-of-consumer-reporting-companies.pdf