Is it wise to OPT- out?

guardmama04 · ‎03-01-2013

My husband and myself are about 4 months out from closing on a new construction home. After doing lots of repairs is it wise to OPT out of prescreens to avoid collection agencies to do possible credit pulls on us?? Seeing that we have applied for a morgtage loan?

Burned2manybridgesB4 · ‎03-01-2013

Definitely!!

There are many here that will swear by it, as a portion of the income made by the CRA's is to sell data lists, namely our information.

Makes it harder to compare a name on a "wanted" list, against a list from the CRA's, when someone does a major inquiry (like a mortgage app), or when scores improve.

Shogun · ‎03-01-2013

+1

You don't want the CRAs posting out to everyone that you're mortgage shopping.

Starting Score: 504
July 2013 score: EQ FICO 819, TU08 778, EX "806 lender pull 07/26/2013
Goal Score: All Scores 760+, Newest goal 800+
Take the myFICO Fitness Challenge
Current scores after adding $81K in CLs and 2 new cars since July 2013
EQ:809 TU 777 EX 790 Now it's just garden time!

June 2017 update: All scores over 820, just pure gardening now.

Anonymous · ‎03-01-2013

Speaking of the opting out, I always wondered about sites like credit karma and credit sesame. Are they like opting in? Considering their whole funding appears to come from credit offers?

rckstrscott · ‎03-01-2013

@Shogun wrote:
+1

You don't want the CRAs posting out to everyone that you're mortgage shopping.

I just want to say, Opting out is severly overrated as far as the damage it prevents. Yes, everythign everyone has said is true.

However, if a CA already owns an account, Opting out does not get rid of their permissible purpose, nor does it impact the services they already pay for from the CRAs that help sniff out accounts... it may impact the lowest rung of bottom feeders but that is it.

I agree you should opt out, but don't think that will prevent debt from appearing. Trust me on this. Just went through the whole thing this time last year!

-scott

Starting FICO Score: October 2010: TU 498 | EQ: 502
Current FICO Scores:: May 2022: TU: 784 | EQ: 770 | EX: 790

Shogun · ‎03-01-2013

Scott brought up a very good point. It's not foolproof by any means. But it's better than nothing. Do you have anything out there lurking in the dark?

Starting Score: 504
July 2013 score: EQ FICO 819, TU08 778, EX "806 lender pull 07/26/2013
Goal Score: All Scores 760+, Newest goal 800+
Take the myFICO Fitness Challenge
Current scores after adding $81K in CLs and 2 new cars since July 2013
EQ:809 TU 777 EX 790 Now it's just garden time!

June 2017 update: All scores over 820, just pure gardening now.

RobertEG · ‎03-01-2013

+1

Opting out is covered by FCRA 604(e), and only relates to preventing a CRA from including your name and address on lists made available to those wishing to make a consumer an unsolicited, firm offer for credit or insurance. To get that info, partiess have a very limited permissible purpose of offering unsolicited credit or insurance.

Debt collectors arent making unsolicited offers for credit or insumrance.

Debt collectors can use their collection authority as permissible purpose under section 604, which entitles them to the consumer's full credit report.

guardmama04 · ‎03-01-2013

I have only had a bunch of inaccurate information that was deleted, due to showing as "revolving accounts" or amounts incorrectly reported and some paid off and got them to delete with a GW but its just shady with CA's. We have been pre-approved but have about 4 months before we have to re-pull our credits. Scores are much higher then when I started this process...we are inbetween 630-680 in our score ranges. Just thought this would be a good precaution, I don't plan on applying for any type of credit until after the house process is over.