Experian Report Now Shows Payment Information

[Anonymous]

I just pulled my Experian full report and noticed that they now show data not only regarding my monthly balance, but how much I pay and when I pay them. The implication here is of course that now credit card companies know that you PIF and may act accordingly based on their preferences. Am I just being over sensitive or is there going to be a substantial change to how credit reports are looked at in the near future?

[Anonymous]

One of the problems with the EX reporting for CCCs is that it doesn't report all your spending and all your purchases -- just with respect to statements. Many rebuilders put multiples of their CL through their card every month. I assume banks would figure out that the reported information is not necessarily reflective of the complete picture.

On a related note, banks can still make money off us pay in full every month customers -- even on rewards cards. I'd argue that it's actually the ones who don't PIF every month who stand to lose the most (think Amex revolver applicants).

[Anonymous]

Or in my case, a PIF Amex revolver applicant, it was actually beneficial. 

[GregB]

Experian has had this data on their reports since June, 2010. It seems that not all creditors are reporting the date and amount of payments. On my reports about one third show no data in all fields. Before June, 2010 they were showing your balance history for two years and the amount of the last payment. So they could see some data that would show if you PIF or not as long as you did on the last payment.

Also, EQ reports have the date and amount of the last payment so they are reporting more than just the balance also.

I think this is wonderful. Now, some reports show if you PIF or if you are just paying the minimum. Clearly, this doesn't factor into scores but a potential creditor can get a more complete picture of what you are doing with your debt.

[Anonymous]

I wonder if this data has always been available to creditors, and now it's appearing on consumer reports.

[Anonymous]

For me, the oldest available data was from June 2010 as well, and only one of my card reports all fields. Interestingly, I pulled a Experian annual free report last December and it doesn't have this information. The Equifax annual free report I pulled last month also doesn't have such info. Only the Experian one I pulled this month, and it from their backdoor, shows such detailed information. There was forum member got denied for an Amex card with reasons such like insufficient pay down of balance on revolving accounts, so at least Amex has been using or just started using this information.

I do agree it can be potentially good or bad thing depending on the bank's business model. Funny, I was just explaining to my gf about how credit reports don't show whether you PIF or not and having a big statement balance each month can look like carrying a balance.

[GregB]

I have a commercial account with all three CRAs. I first noticed the "extra" information on EX a year ago. I wasn't seeing this information on MY reports that I was pulling from Creditexpert.com (Experian). I just assumed that the creditor was getting more information on payment patterns than the customer. The customer gets to see extra stuff that the creditor doesn't get to see such as "soft inquiries".

I wasn't going to pull a credit report on myself and give myself an inquiry just to find out all the differences!

My last annualcreditreport.com full report was May, 2010 which turned out to be just before the "extra" information started appearing. When I pulled the complete reports, I could see all the "extra" information on EX starting in June, 2010.

EQ gives you "Actual Payment Amount" but no date.

TU gives you nothing extra.

EX gives you "account balance / date payment received / scheduled payment amount / actual amount paid". Even before they started reporting all the extra information, they were reporting the actual balance month-by-month for the previous two years.

Don't forget that some creditors don't report ANY extra information and some only report SOME extra info.

I can tell you as a vendor or when doing investigation, EX is always my first choice. They are way faster in every way and give you more meaningful information.