how far in advance

[Anonymous]

how far in advance should I lock down my credit report for permissible peeks from collection agencies before I apply for a mortgage?

[MBOhio2]

I'm not sure how late is too late, but there's no harm in opting-out (which prevents CA seeing inquiries, as you have mentioned), so I would do it immediately, just to be safe.

[Booner72]

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@MBOhio2 wrote:

I'm not sure how late is too late, but there's no harm in opting-out (which prevents CA seeing inquiries, as you have mentioned), so I would do it immediately, just to be safe.

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How does opting out prevent CA's from seeing inquiries if they have a permissible purpose to look at your credit?  this is a confusing topic of late around here.  The CRA's send out "credit alerts" to CA's when we do anything to our credit, which is why this junk comes out right at mortgage time - No one seems to know FOR SURE if opting out stops this or just seems to help a lot.  Thanks for your info.

[CS800]

I have been opted out for 3 years now and about 3 weeks ago started getting citi mail offers. The opt out lasts for 5 years from the day that you opted out.

If you have a card with a creditor, they can still soft your credit reports.

Opting out prevent the CRA from selling your info

Freezing your reports prevent any ohter creditor from looking at your report (apart from the ones with which you have a credit account .loan etc)

ALso to be aware of is that when you get a card now, you get a small paper that says what information they will share with their 'partners and  affiliates'. I got this piece of paper with bot hof my GE accounts. There is a nubmer to call to tell them that you do not want this. But you cannot opt out of all their options.

[MBOhio2]

Booner - Hmm, that's a very good point. Maybe I misunderstand the purpose/effect of opting out??

[boomhower]

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@MBOhio2 wrote:

Booner - Hmm, that's a very good point. Maybe I misunderstand the purpose/effect of opting out??

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When you apply for a mortgage is pops up on a service the CA's subscribe to.  If you opt-out you won't pop up on that service.  If it's a CA that is currently collecting they can soft/hard your report.  Basically it keeps Asset/LVNL and the like for throwing crap on your report hoping you'll just pay even though it's blatantly wrong.  It's worth the 20 seconds it takes to do and you can opt back in when you close.