Today went to mylife.com to see what they had on me.

[firefox100]

Today I went to the web site www.mylife.com to see what they had and see what public records would show up. What I found was bunch of judgments and the amounts thay go back over 15 years ago. Ok I understand that Judgments over 10 years don't show up on your credit bureau's. Ok what I see on Mylife.com I would lend my self money or grant a credit card in my name. What good is fico score and the CB's bureau's to the banks. You can stick it to the banks then 10 years later start over. Is that why some people mya not get a high cl from GS applecard or turned down because they are using other data bases as part credit underwwriting. Does the law stop the banks from going back more then 6 years when looking at your past credit history.

[Anonymous]

Judgments don’t show up on your credit report. That was stopped. A day old, 100 years old, they don’t collect that information or disseminate it anymore.

The law requires credit reporting agencies to stop reporting negative information after seven years have passed.

[iced]

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@Anonymous wrote:
Judgments don’t show up on your credit report. That was stopped. A day old, 100 years old, they don’t collect that information or disseminate it anymore.

The law requires credit reporting agencies to stop reporting negative information after seven years have passed.

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While true, I also read the question as "what stops a bank from using data sources outside of credit reports in deciding whether or not to take you on as a customer?", in which case I'm not aware of any law requiring them to use the credit bureau data and ONLY the credit bureau data in their decisions.

I'm happy to be corrected here, but my understanding is the answer to the above question is that nothing stops them from doing that, though most probably won't bother because it's inefficient for them to do so and it likely rarely adds any significant value to their decision as to whether or not they approve you.

There are examples, with Chase being the notable one, that use their own internal scoring system, derived from sources we can only speculate about, whereby they may approve someone who looks unapprovable based on FiCO score or reject someone with an otherwise clean report and solid FiCO score.

[Anonymous]

I know of no law prohibiting them from using other data sources. GSs other known sources are alternative credit reporting agencies that are also bound by that seven year rule.

Chase is not alone in having an internal scoring system. Many financial institutions do. It’s anyone’s guess as to how it weighs what or what it takes into account.

I don’t know whether anything prohibits a financial institution from having public records researched independently and I don’t know whether they can use adverse information against you that’s older than seven years? I just know it can’t be reported by CRAs. Maybe some other members can chime in.

I can imagine it would be expensive to have such research done independently, which is the purpose of having credit reporting agencies to do that work for them. And that’s why the law regulates CRAs, because that’s where FIs normally obtain such information and because that’s what they’re in the business of doing.

[Anonymous]

In theory though, why would a person start over just to ruin their credit again? And then have to wait another 7 years rebuilding just to start the process over? So I think this is why FICO is used, it does reprisent an accurate picture of ones credit worthiness. From a certain point of view.

Anyone who has been through the rebuilding process, I am sure, would likely not want to repeat it. So once that past is behind them , they'd probably do whatever possible to keep it from happening again. Because the debt is still there and can be sued at any time for it. Just because it falls off the CB's doesn't mean that the debt cannot come back to haunt them. 

For this reason I think Banks would tend to have the same idea. Even though they're a higher risk than someone who didn't default in the past, they have a chance to rebuild that responsibility going forward. 

[Anonymous]

No, if a creditor has not sued and obtained a judgment before the SOL run out they cannot sue any longer. The creditor becomes SOL, pun intended.

Likewise if a judgment, if obtained, is only good for so long pursuant to the SOL.

[iced]

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@Anonymous wrote:

In theory though, why would a person start over just to ruin their credit again? And then have to wait another 7 years rebuilding just to start the process over? So I think this is why FICO is used, it does reprisent an accurate picture of ones credit worthiness. From a certain point of view.

Anyone who has been through the rebuilding process, I am sure, would likely not want to repeat it. So once that past is behind them , they'd probably do whatever possible to keep it from happening again. Because the debt is still there and can be sued at any time for it. Just because it falls off the CB's doesn't mean that the debt cannot come back to haunt them. 

For this reason I think Banks would tend to have the same idea. Even though they're a higher risk than someone who didn't default in the past, they have a chance to rebuild that responsibility going forward. 

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You might be surprised how many people fall right back into debt and even file bankrupcty multiple times in their adult lives. I even know some people (and am in fact related to a few) who know this and take turns with credit reports: the husband racks up debt, burns all the creditors, goes bankrupt, then sits on his bad report while the wife does the responsible credit thing for a while. After his record clears up and he rebuilds with the creditors, she then burns everyone and goes bankrupt. You can get a good-enough bankruptcy attorney for a couple thousand dollars so they see it as actually being profitable to them to go bankrupt. They rinse and repeat this cycle.

The only silver lining to this is they can repeat the cycle 2-3 times in a lifetime.

I'm not saying this is the norm by any means, but believe me when I say there absolutely are people out there who use that 7-year memory span to personally gain off the banks repeatedly.