Ten Things the Credit Bureaus WON'T Say

The lastest blog post from the Kittell Law Firm website:

Kudos to AnnaMaria Andriotis at MarketWatch.com for penning a very detailed, in depth article about ten things the Credit Bureaus won't say.  I have taken her ten items (in quotes below) and added my thoughts for each one.  I even added an eleventh thing you won't hear the Credit Bureaus dare say.  

Ms. Andriotis' ten things include:

1.  "We track a lot more than just your credit."  What else do the credit bureaus track?  Pretty much anything they can.  Like how often you change addresses, your income, your neighbors' income, your city's average credit score, how often you change jobs.

2.  "Selling your secrets is how we make our money."  That's right.  We are not their customers.  We are the credit bureaus' inventory.  And they get that inventory virtually for free (and sometimes even paid to receive it).  Our creditors provide our payment history to the credit bureaus, sometimes paying a fee to do so.  The credit bureaus then turn around, compile the information provided by thousands of creditors into your credit report, then sell it to you and to your potential creditors.  If they assign the oh so magical "credit score" to your report, you pay even more just to have this number (which is not even uniform among the credit bureaus, creditors, or any one else).  Craziness.  Even crazier ... the credit bureau industry raked in about $4 billion in 2011 selling you to your potential creditors.  Bet you did not see a dime of what your information was sold for.

3.  "What we know could cost you a new job."  That's right.  Your credit report is not just used to determine your credit eligibility.  Its also used by many employers (roughly 47%) during the hiring process.  That often leads to a catch 22 type situation that I have talked about before, where you can't pay your bills because you are unemployed but no one will hire you because your credit score dropped when you didn't pay your bills.  Again I say ... craziness.

4.  "Good thing no one's reporting on our mistakes.  Oh, wait."  That's right, the credit bureaus sure wish there was no one paying attention to their accuracy level, or lack thereof.  But watchdog organizations and even governmental entities are watching and keeping track.  US PIRG releases a report on the credit bureaus every few years.  And, recently, the Federal Trade Commission issued a very damning report that showed that one in five (20%) of consumers had at least one error on one of their credit reports.  13% had errors serious enough to effect their credit score (i.e. making their interest rates go up or their credit limits lessen) and 5% had errors so bad that the errors would cause them to be denied credit in their entirety.  5% may not sound like a big number but that equates to about 10 million consumers.  Crazy scary.  

The Fair Credit Reporting Act requires the credit bureaus to follow reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy of the credit reports they create (and profit off of).  Obviously, a 20% error rate is not "maximum possible accuracy" or anything close.  Add that to an investigation procedure that does not come close to cutting it, and you have a recipe for a disaster for hardworking consumers.

5.  "You all look so much alike..."  This one hits on the faulty matching logic used by the credit bureaus.  When the credit bureaus generate credit reports about you, they use the personal identifying information inputted by the entity seeking your credit report to match you to your accounts.  At least that's how its supposed to work.  But the credit bureaus do not require an exact match of your identifiers to the identifiers on an account before putting that account on your report and publishing it as your history, good bad or ugly.  This leads to what us consumer lawyers call mixed files.  

I once represented a man whose brother had bad credit.  They shared the same last name (most brothers do).  Their first names started with the same first initial (again, a lot of parents name their kids like that).  Seven out of nine numbers of their SSN match, but that's not uncommon.  If they got their SSNs in the same state and at the same time, its very likely the first five numbers match, since (back then) the first three numbers identified the state where the SSN was obtained and the middle two numbers indicate the grouping of SSNs.  So if their parents got their SSNs at the same time (again, not uncommon), the first five numbers are very likely to match.  The two brothers in my case also shared the same address at one point in time (about 10 years before, again not uncommon for brothers to at one point live at the same address).  And their dates of birth were within ten years of each other, again not unusual for brothers.  So the only personal identifier that match was the brothers' last name.  But that was enough for one of the credit bureaus to merge their credit histories together, ruining my client's stellar credit with his deadbeat brother's terrible credit history.  And, even worse, the credit bureau refused to fix the problem, despite years of dispute from my client, until he finally hired me and we sued.  Crazy crazy.

6.  "... its tough to tell you apart from someone pretending to be you."  Ahhhh, identity theft.  The reason I got into this area of law to begin with.  While its often the fraudulent credit grantors that are to blame for the problems caused by identity theft, the blame also rests with the credit bureaus.  What the credit bureaus want to ignore is the Fair Credit Reporting Act's requirement that they perform reasonable investigations of disputes lodged with them.  They want to pretend that only the furnisher of the disputed information has such a duty (the furnisher does have such a duty, but its in addition to the credit bureaus' duty to investigate).  So all the credit bureaus do to "investigate" is forward your dispute to the furnisher of the erroneous data and then ... wait for it ... the credit bureaus believe whatever the furnisher tells them, no matter what proof you have provided of your innocence.  Unlike in baseball, where "a tie goes to the runner", in the credit bureau's world, you are out no matter how much you beat the throw, simply because the umpire says you are.  And the umpire gets paid if he calls you out.  Twice as crazy as crazy crazy.

7.  "Your 'credit dispute' doesn't quite capture our attention."  This ties into number 6.  The Fair Credit Reporting Act requires the credit bureaus to forward all relevant information provided to them by the disputing consumer to the furnisher of the information being disputed.  But what's nuts (I've run out of ways to say crazy)?  The credit bureaus do not even have a system in place that allows them to forward any documentation or other proof from consumers to the furnishers.  All they provide is a two digit code that is translated on the furnisher's end to a basic dispute like "identity theft" or "not mine" or "never late".  So send proof that you were never late, including bank statements and cancelled checks.  But don't expect your proof to make it to that umpire waiting to get paid by calling you out.

8.  "But bypass us on a dispute, and it'll cost you."  This is one of the main weaknesses of the Fair Credit Reporting Act.  There is no liability on the part of the credit bureaus or the furnishers of erroneous information if you do what most think is natural - dispute directly to the furnisher.  For the duties to perform reasonable investigations under the FCRA to be triggered, the dispute must be made to the credit bureau, even though all they are going to do is pass the buck on to the furnisher.  Many consumers do not know this and end up with no claim because they went straight to the furnisher instead of disputing to the credit bureaus.  

But disputes to furnishers are important.  See number 6 and 7.  Because the credit bureaus do not pass on your proof to the furnishers and do a lack luster job translating your two page dispute letter to a two digit dispute code, sometimes it is up to you to let the furnisher know what  your dispute really is.  And disputing to the furnisher in addition to the credit bureaus eliminates a common defense I see from the furnishers where they claim ignorance as to a consumer's dispute because they did not know what the credit bureaus meant by their two digit dispute code.  So, all you consumers out there, be sure to lodge your disputes with both the credit bureaus (to trigger the FCRA) and with the furnishers (so they can't avoid the FCRA by claiming ignorance).  

9.  "By the time you're done fighting us, your toddler could be a teen."  This one I don't necessarily agree with but only because the author of the Marketwatch.com article did not mention that you can stop the errors in most cases by suing the credit bureaus and/or furnishers.  So, consumers, dispute the errors.  Dispute them often.  Give the credit bureaus and the furnishers multiple opportunities to do the right thing and fix their errors.  And, if and when they don't, hire a consumer lawyer like me and sue the bureaus and furnishers for all the heart ache their refusal to follow the law caused.

10.  "Be careful what you pay for."  I've blogged on this topic multiple times at my blog located at www.fcralawyer.blogspot.com.  The credit score that the credit bureaus so eagerly want to sell you is not even a score that is used by your potential creditors in most instances.  It can be enlightening to see what your score is, but that's about it.  Creditor use different scoring models than what the credit bureaus sell.  The most common used score is the FICO score which consumers can buy, but not from the credit bureaus.  To see your FICO score, go to http://www.myfico.com.  

All in all, a very informative and well researched and written article about the true story of the credit bureaus.  But I will add a number 11 of my own:

11.  "We spend top dollar to investigate your disputes."  Not only do they not pay top dollar, the credit bureaus do not even pay minimum wage to its investigators. Your disputes are being handled by outsourced investigators in such places as Chile, Jamaica and the Philippines, where the credit bureaus do not even have to pay minimum wage.  And they work their third world work force by placing quotas on how many investigations they perform a day.  One such credit bureau expected its investigators to perform an investigation every two minutes.  That's simply not enough time to "reasonably" investigate anything.  Craziness to the nth degree.

Please read the full article at http://www.marketwatch.com/story/10-things-credit-bureaus-wont-say-2013-02-15.  Again, the article is very well written and a must read.

Experian purchases Australian company Pacific Micromarketing

Expanding its Australian presence, consumer reporting agency Experian Information Solutions, Inc. purchased Pacific Micromarketing for $6.17 million dollars. Pacific Micromarketing was the analytics arm of Australian publisher PMP. Pacific Micromarketing surveys, records, classifies, segments and analyzes customer databases for commercial clients. The 15 year old company operated in Australia and New Zealand. All of its employees will transfer to Experian offices as part of the sale. PMP will continue to exist as its own company.

The Band is Back!!!

Anyone who has read this blog knows that I don't exactly love Experian.  I also don't really like their subsidiary freecreditscore.com, since they don't really offer free credit scores.  But I have to admit, I liked the down and out band that starred in the original freecreditscore.com commercials.  From living in the basement of their in-laws and having to settle for early '90's style cell phones, all due to bad credit and not knowing their credit score, these guys exemplified the rough life of having bad credit.

I'm not sure if they wrote their own songs, but the songs were so great and really underscored why your credit score is so important.  In fact, given Experian's tendency to not report accurate credit (which in turn leads to inaccurate credit scores), I think the commercials starring the original band were helpful in educating potential jurors across the nation about the importance of credit scores, jurors who hopefully would make Experian pay proper compensation to those injured as a result of Experian's failure to abide by the provisions of the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

For some reason, freecreditscore.com did away with the popular band, held a contest to find a replacement which simply turned out not to be as entertaining as the original band.  Apparently seeing their blunder, freecreditscore.com has announced that its bringing the original band back!  I can't wait to see some new material from them.

Dishonesty on credit card applications at three year high

The level of dishonesty on credit card applications is on the rise, according to a recent study by Experian.  Not that Experian is actually known for its accuracy, but for the sake of argument, lets assume Experian's study is accurate.

According to Experian, 44 out of every 10,000 current account applications were found to be fraudulent in the first quarter of this year.  This represents an increase of 23 percent over the last three months of 2011 (which would include the holiday shopping season which to me would seem like a time of the year that would be highest for this sort of fraud).

Current account fraud includes things like misrepresenting income or exaggerating or hiding personal information, such as bad credit histories.

While troubling, another way to look at the figure of 44 out of 10,000 is that its a lot less than Experian's error rate which is somewhere around 2,500 out of every 10,000 credit reports containing serious errors!

Experian's 2012 Annual Report

Here's a link to Experian's 2012 Annual Report - http://www.experianplc.com/investor-centre/reports/investor-reports/2012a.aspx.

Looks like Experian is raking it in. Their revenue is nearly 4.5 billion and is up by over half a billion from last year. I need to start requiring them to settle with my clients for more.

The Fourth Credit Bureau?

If you have been reading this blog much, you have probably seen me refer to Equifax, Experian and Trans Union as the Big Three.  They could also be called the Three Stooges, but I'd hate to insult Moe, Larry and Curly.

But what a lot of people don't realize is that there are many, many consumer reporting agencies outside of the Big Three.  I was reminded of this recently when I read a Washington Post article entitled "Five Facts about the Fourth Bureau".  At first I thought there might be a new bureau emerging (kind of like Shemp, the fourth stooge).  Instead, the article lumps together all the smaller, unorthodox consumer reporting agencies as the "fourth bureau".

The other bureaus tend to cover topics that are missed by the Big Three.  Some can be seen as niche market CRAs, such as the ones that collect information about rent paying history, which they then sell to potential landlords.  Other types of information collected by the "fourth bureau" are payment histories regarding utilities payments, cellphone bills, magazine subscriptions and gym memberships.  Some even keep up with whether consumers return their rental movies on time.  Others include companies that compile investigative consumer reports and that provide criminal history type reports that can be used for background checks.

These smaller bureaus can play important roles as over 30 million U.S. consumers don't show up in the Big Three's databases.  These consumers are in a credit morass, as they can not get a loan without a credit history and can not get a credit history without getting loans.  But they can rent apartments, rent movies, sign up for utilities, etc.  The payment histories generated by these actions can sometimes be used in place of a more traditional credit report.

But these types of payment histories can also hurt a consumer's chances of getting credit if they do not reflect a responsible payment pattern, or if they contain damaging errors, which they are apt to contain.  Approximately 25% or more of the Big Three's reports contain damaging errors, so the other bureaus are likely to have a similar error rate.  The good news ... even though these companies are not the "Big Three", they are still subject to the vast majority of the requirements of the Fair Credit Reporting Act, including the requirement that they provide to consumers upon request a complete report of all information in their database about the consumer and 15 U.S.C. 1681i's requirement that they reasonably investigate consumer's disputes of inaccurate information.

The down side ... to get your report from the small bureaus will cost you some money (approximately $11) since the yearly free credit report requirement only applies to the Big Three.  Consumers can also get a free credit report from any CRA if they are denied credit (or suffer some other adverse action) as a result of the contents of the CRA's report.

The same rules regarding disputing errors also apply to the "fourth bureau" ... namely disputing in writing and dispute often.  If that doesn't work, hire someone like me to sue for damages resulting from the errors (which usually also includes the benefit of a corrected credit report.  Funny how a lawsuit will do things that a multitude of even the best dispute letters can not.)  If any of  you need help with the Big Three or the "fourth bureau", I'm only an e-mail away.

Horrible decision on s-2(b) claim

A bad decision was rendered recently, dismissing a consumer's claim against a furnisher who failed to perform a reasonable investigation of the consumer's dispute of the collection of a fraudulently opened account.

In Healey v. Trans Union, a decision rendered May 18, 2011, by the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington threw out a consumer's 15 U.S.C. 1681s-2(b) claim against a furnisher because the Court found that the furnisher's investigation, which was non-existent as best as I can tell, was sufficient.

Healey was the victim of identity theft.  The impostor opened an account with Sprint, which eventually resulted in the fraud Sprint account being sold to DRS, a collection agency.  Despite numerous disputes made by Healey to DRS regarding the fraudulent nature of the collection account, DRS continued to report the account to the credit bureaus for inclusion on Healey's credit reports.

Healey then disputed the DRS collection account to the credit bureaus, including Trans Union and Experian, pursuant to 15 U.S.C. 1681i.  Apparently, Healey did not possess evidence that Trans Union forwarded the 1681i dispute to Trans Union and thus could not establish that DRS's requirement to perform a reasonable investigation of the dispute pursuant to 15 U.S.C. 1681s-2(b) was ever triggered.  Thus, dismissal of the s-2(b) claim against DRS relating to the Trans Union dispute was proper.

However, the dismissal of the s-2(b) claim related to the Experian dispute is another matter.  There was proof that Experian complied with 1681i and forwarded the dispute to DRS.  However, the Court found that summary judgment was appropriate because there was no evidence regarding what exactly DRS did to investigate and it was Healey's duty to establish that DRS' investigation was not reasonable.  DRS obviously failed to include in its "investigation" a review of its own files regarding Healey's previous disputes.  As a result, it is clear that DRS did not perform even the most elementary investigation of Healey's dispute to Experian regarding the DRS collection.  However, the Court did not think so and, as a result, wrongly (in my opinion) granted summary judgment.

Unfortunately for Healey, it was a sad day for justice in the western district of Washington.

Experian credit reports to include positive rental payments

Potentially good news for renters - Experian credit reports are to include positive rental payments.  As far as I know, Experian is the first of the credit bureaus to take this big step.

In the past, only negative information about a renter's payment history was included on credit reports.  That meant that the segment of the population, which often included those trying to establish their credit history (i.e. college students or those just starting out), did not get the benefit to their credit history of their timely rent payments.  Only if their payments were late would the rental payments show up on a credit report.  Obviously, the late payments would damage the credit history of the renter whereas those renters who made their rent payments on time did not see those timely rental payments show up at all in their credit history.

No more.  Now Experian is going to include the positive rental payment history of many consumers on its credit reports.  Here's the details straight from Experian's website -

On-time rental payments now help boost credit scores

In the past, only negative rental payment data such as evictions and collections were reported to consumer reporting agencies. Therefore, your on-time rental payments never helped boost your credit scores, unlike credit card, mortgage or car payments that help raise credit scores when paid on time.

But this has changed now that Experian® will be including positive rental data in consumer credit reports. The addition of this data is a tremendous benefit to anyone who rents, especially those who are non-credit-active, cash-based consumers.

Key Benefits to Consumers

Establish or rebuild your credit — You can now make your continuous on-time rental payments count towards establishing or rebuilding your credit

Qualify for what you deserve — If you were previously unable to qualify for a lease or credit product due to a thin credit file you will now be able to demonstrate past rental payment history and qualify for what you deserve

How It Works

Experian RentBureau receives updated rental payment data every 24 hours from its national network of property management companies. In order for this data to be included in your credit file, your property management company must contribute its rental history data to Experian RentBureau.

Experian recognizes the value of having a good rental payment history. Please contact your property management company and ask them to contribute their data to Experian RentBureau.

If reported accurately, this development could help millions of consumers who otherwise have little or no credit history begin to build a credit history and become homeowners if they so desire.  Of course, if the rent payment history is reported inaccurately in an adverse manner, the damage done to a developing credit history could be disastrous.  Fortunately, the FCRA should help protect victims of rent payment reporting errors in the same manner as it helps rectify credit reporting errors of other kinds.

FTC cracks down on advertising for non-free services while ordering your free credit reports

NewJersey.com reports on new restrictions by the FTC -

In an attempt to make sure credit reporting agencies don't put a fast one over on consumers seeking free credit reports, the Federal Trade Commission has adopted tough new disclosure rules in response to more than 1,000 comments it received from consumers and others last fall.

Under a federal law passed in 2003, the three credit reporting agencies — Equifax, TransUnion and Experian — are required to provide consumers with a free copy of their credit report each year, but the agencies have found ways to recoup fees they used to get for those reports.

Part of the problem is that the gateway to the free reports — AnnualCreditReport.com — takes you through sites for the individual agencies. There, they try to sell services for which there is a fee, such as monthly reports (rarely needed) or your credit score (needed only occasionally).

And it's not just the three agencies, as other commercial sites use bait-and-switch tactics, drawing you in with the lure of free reports before pushing you to pay services.

Starting April 1, the commercial enterprises will still be able to sell their wares, but they'll have to do a better job of distinguishing between free and paid services.

The rest of the article can be found here - http://www.northjersey.com/news/business/85754242_Indeed__a_free_credit_report.html.

Watch Out India!

Experian Credit Information Co has received the final approval from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to set up a credit bureau in the country, it announced on Thursday. The bureau will have to begin operations within six months.


“Now that we have the licence, we will begin the process of collecting credit data from lenders,” said Phil Nolan, the newly-appointed managing director of Experian Credit Bureau.
In November 2009, Experian formed a credit information company in India by roping in seven partners, including Axis Bank, Federal Bank, Indian Bank, Magma Fincorp, Punjab National Bank, Sundaram Finance and Union Bank of India.
At present, Credit Information Bureau (Cibil) is the only functional credit bureau in the country.
“Cibil has a 5-year headstart and that is a big advantage. But, the advantage for us is that data sharing principles have already been established in the country. This will make our job simpler,” said Nolan.
In April last year, RBI had granted an in-principal approval to four credit bureaus, including Cibil, Experian, Equifax Information Services and Higmark Credit Information Services.
In January this year, Equifax announced about setting up a credit bureau in joint venture with six Indian partners, including Bank of Baroda, Bank of India, Kotak Mahindra Prime, Religare Finvest, Sundaram Finance and Union Bank of India.

Credit Denial Codes

You would think that its is the credit lender that comes up with the reasons why it does not want to grant your credit application.  Wrong.  The lender makes the decision but it is the credit bureaus that provide the reasons why your credit application is denied to the lender which the lender then inputs on the adverse action letter they send you informing you that your application was denied.  Every time a credit bureau sends out your credit report to a third party, it includes four reasons why you should be denied credit, no matter how good your credit history is.  Even if your payment history is flawless and you have a "perfect" credit score, the credit bureaus still provide 4 reasons you shouldn't get credit.  Crazy, right?

The four reasons come in the form of four code numbers.  Here is a list of what those code numbers mean -

EQUIFAX – BEACON Score Codes


39 – serious delinquency

38 – serious delinquency, and derogatory public record or collection filed

34 – amount owed on delinquent accounts

33 – proportion of loan balances to loan amounts is too high

32 – lack of recent information on installment loan accounts or lack of installment loan accounts

31 – too few accounts with recent payment information

30 – time since most recent account opening is too short

28 – number of accounts established

24 – no recently reported revolving balances

23 – number of bank or national revolving accounts with balances

22 – accounts not paid as agreed, public record, or collection agency filing (FORECLOSURE)

21 – amount past due on accounts

20 – length of time since derogatory public record or collection is too short

19 – too few accounts currently paid as agreed

18 – number of accounts with delinquency currently or in the past not paid as agreed

17 – no non-mortgage account balances or non-mortgage balances not recently reported

16 – lack of recent revolving account information

15 – lack of recent bank revolving information

14 – length of time accounts have been established

13 – time since delinquency is too recent (or unknown) or trade narrative reported

12 – length of time revolving accounts have been established

11 – amount owed on revolving account is too high

10 – proportion of balances to credit limits is too high on bank revolving or other revolving accounts

09 – too many accounts recently opened

08 – too many inquiries last 12 months

07 – recent payment history is too new to rate

06 – too many consumer finance company accounts

05 – too many accounts with balances

04 – too many bank or national revolving/open accounts

03 – too few bank or national revolving/open accounts

02 – level of delinquency on accounts

01 – amount owed on accounts is too high

O – beacon not available, no recently reported account information

FA – number of inquiries adversely affected the score, but not significantly

TRANS UNION – EMPIRICA Score Codes

42 – length of time since most recent consumer finance company account established(**factor not currently in use)

41 – no recent retail balances (**factor not currently in use)40 – derogatory public record or collection filed

39 – serious delinquency

38 – serious delinquency, and public record or collection filed

36 – payments due on accounts (**factor not currently in use)

31 – amount owed on delinquent accounts (**factor not currently in use)

30 – time since most recent account opening is too short

29 – no recent bankcard balances

28 – number of established accounts

27 – too few accounts currently paid as agreed

26 – number of bank revolving or other revolving accounts (**factor not currently in use)

24 – no recent revolving balances

23 – number of bank or national revolving accounts with balances

22 – serious delinquency derogatory public record or collection filed (FORECLOSURE)

21 – amount past due on accounts

20 – length of time since derogatory public record or collection is too short

19 – Date of last inquiry too recent

18 – number of accounts with delinquency

17 – no recent non-mortgage balance information

16 – lack of recent revolving account information

15 – lack of recent bank revolving information

14 – length of time accounts have been established

13 – time since delinquency is too recent or unknown

12 – length of time revolving accounts have been established

11 – amount owed on revolving accounts is too high

10 – proportion of balances to credit limits is too high on bank revolving or other revolving accounts

09 – too many accounts recently opened

08 – too many inquiries last 12 months

07 – account payment history

06 – too many consumer finance company accounts

05 – too many accounts with balances

04 – lack of recent installment loan information

03 – proportion of loan balances to loan amounts is too high

02 – level of delinquency on accounts

01 – amount owed on accounts too high

00 – no adverse factor

MODEL NOT SCORED: INSUFFICIENT CREDIT message occurs when a credit file does not contain
a trade line opened for at least 6 months and trade line updated within the last 6 months.

FA – in addition to the factors listed above, the number of inquiries on the consumer’s credit file has adversely affected the credit score.

MODEL NOT SCORED: DECEASED message occurs when the subject’s Social Security Number matches the Social Security Administration’s deceased Social Security Number file, or is reported as deceased by a credit grantor.

EXPERIAN – FAIR ISAAC Score Codes

40 – derogatory public record or collection field

39 – serious delinquency

38 – serious delinquency and public record or collection filed

37 – number of finance company accounts established relative to length of finance history

36 – length of time open installment loans have been established

33 – proportion of current loan balance to original loan amount


32 – no recent installment loan information

31 – too few accounts with recent payment information

30 – length of time since most recent account established

28 – number of accounts established

26 – number of revolving accounts

25 – length of installment loan history

24 – lack of recently reported balances on revolving/open accounts

22 – account(s) not paid as agreed and/or legal item filed (FORECLOSURE)

21 – amount past due to accounts

20 – length of time since legal item filed or collection item reported

18 – number of accounts delinquent

17 – no recent (non-mortgage) accounts balance information

16 – insufficient or lack of revolving account information

15 – insufficient or lack of bank revolving account information

14 – length of time accounts have been established

13 – length of time (or unknown time) since account delinquent

12 – length of revolving account history

11 – current balances on revolving accounts

10 – proportion of balance to high credit on bank revolving or all revolving accounts

09 – number of accounts opened within the last 12 months

08 – number of recent inquiries

07 – Unable to evaluate recent payment history

06 – number of finance company accounts

05 – number of accounts with balances

04 – Too many bank revolving accounts

03 – Too few bank revolving accounts

02 – delinquency reported on accounts

01 – current balances on accounts

Exclusion Messages

9003 – Experian/Fair Isaac Score Not Available Due to Lack of Credit History – The Profile report does not contain any trade lines which have been open for at least six months

9002 – Experian/Fair Isaac Score Not Available Due to Model Exclusion Criteria – The Profile report does not contain any trade line which satisfies both of the following:

1. Status date within the last six months, or a balance within the last six months if the status code is not “11″ (“Current account”)

2. Does not contain disputed information

9001 – Experian/Fair Isaac Score Not Available Due to Report of “Deceased” Status – The Profile report contains a subscriber transaction with a status code of “21″ or an association code of “X” indicating the consumer is deceased

9000 – Experian/Fair Isaac Score Not Available Due to System File Size Parameters – The Profile report contains more than 100 subscriber trade and inquiry transactions

Experian kills off another consumer

What's with these credit bureaus?  One of the many recurring problems with the credit bureaus is that they often report consumers as deceased when they are very much still alive.  But don't let a little thing like a pulse contradict a credit bureau's pronouncement of death!  Here's a quote from an article about yet another "deceased" consumer with a heart beat -

"They said, 'I'm really sorry, but we can't process this loan any further because we have a report declaring you deceased," Julie Kerr recalled.


No one was more surprised to hear the report of Julie's mother's death than Julie's mother herself, Ann Howe of Bothel, Washington.

"I just said, 'What? What are they talking about?' I said, 'I'm certainly alive. My doctor knows I'm alive," Howe said.

Howe indeed is alive and well, but she could not get anybody to believe her even though she goes into Bank of America all the time.

"Everybody knows my mom there," said Kerr. "My mom's this happy-go-lucky chatterbox."

"Bank of America knew that I was coming in there. I have automatic deposits that go in there," Howe said.

However, seeing was not believing. So, Howe sent an official notarized letter to Bank of America saying, "The report of my demise is inaccurate information."

"We understand she's alive. We understand it's a mistake, but because we can't get a credit score from Experian, there's nothing we can do," Kerr said.

SO even though the lender knew this "happy-go-lucky chatterbox" was alive, they believed Experian's claim she was dead over the lady's own beating heart.  And, of course, Experian refused to fix the problem, thereby violating the Fair Credit Reporting Act, which is a pretty common occurrence at Experian. 

Kerr was finally able to resurrect her mother after a local TV station got involved and put some heat on the situation.  Good for the tv stations, but, really folks, it shouldn't take the threat of bad press to get a simple to fix error fixed.  Guess she should have use the magic words "its only a flesh wound"!

Here's a link to the full article - http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/7_on_your_side&id=7270195

Stay OFF the tennis court! Tennis is the most common trait of identity theft victims

Guess Tiger Woods is safe from this one.  But Venus Williams, Andre Agassi, John McEnroe and Anna Kournikova better watch out.  Experian has compiles what it sees as the most common traits of an identity theft victim.  The most common?  Tennis.  Yes, tennis.  Check out the article below.

Most Common Traits of ID Theft Victims
by Jeremy M. Simon
Friday, January 29, 2010
Wealthy consumers who enjoy leisure activities such as tennis, skiing and international vacations are top targets for identity thieves, according to a new report.
A report released Wednesday by credit bureau Experian shows that fraudsters are on the hunt for the most affluent suburban consumers. Compared to the general population of credit applicants, Experian says these consumers live in and around metropolitan areas, favor leisure activities, have college diplomas or advanced degrees and more often tend to be married.
Affluent are more often victims of ID theft, report shows”The crooks are going where the money is,” says Gail Hillebrand, senior attorney with Consumers Union, the nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports magazine.
Most Common Traits, Activities
Experian identifies the common activities of those most often victimized by ID theft:
• Tennis

• Politics

• Foreign travel

• Charities/volunteering

• Cultural/arts

• Skiing
Where — and how — these consumers live also seems to make them more of a target. “The opportunities to steal discarded documents would be greater in suburban areas,” says Linda Sherry, director of national priorities with advocacy group Consumer Action. “More affluent households may have domestic help and service people who may have the opportunity to steal personal info from the home that can be used to acquire credit.”
How did Experian identify this group of wealthy victims? The bureau’s Fraud and Identity Solutions group — in conjunction with Experian Marketing Services — compared credit application data with thousands of individual fraud records between January 2007 and November 2008. It found that three of its 12 demographic groups were the most highly sought-after by identity thieves: “affluent suburbia,” “upscale American” and the more middle-class “American diversity” category of consumers.
Experian found that compared with the general population of credit applicants, the consumers most often victimized by fraudsters tend to own more new and luxury vehicles and live in higher-income neighborhoods that contain many more homeowners than renters. Additionally, these borrowers tend to be based in densely populated metropolitan areas and often reside in multifamily homes or condos.
Thieves aren’t the only group focusing on wealthy borrowers. “Lenders are obviously targeting some of these demographics as well,” with better and more frequent offers of financial goods and services, says Keir Breitenfeld, director of product management for Experian’s Fraud and Identity Solutions group. As a result, thieves who target these consumers and steal their information have an easier time getting credit and services in their victims’ names. “If you’re a fraudster, you want to assume the identity of someone who can go out and get high-value services,” Breitenfeld says.
How to Protect Yourself
Consumer advocates, meanwhile, say that if the affluent can be victimized by ID thieves, anyone can. “You can’t protect yourself. Even the most affluent suburban households, it’s still happening to them,” Hillebrand says. She says that banks and other institutions have an obligation to better guard consumer data. “We don’t have much control over that as individual consumers. People who receive our data decide how carefully to protect our information,” Hillebrand says.
However, Experian says lenders need to strike a balance between guarding consumers and not making them struggle unnecessarily to get approved for credit. If consumers must jump through too many hoops in order to get a loan, Experian says, the bank may end up losing their business. Still, Experian says its report suggests that financial institutions may want to do more to protect certain high-risk borrowers.

Experian's profits rise at expense of Latin American's credit history accuracy

Experian has reported a 1 percent increase in its third quarter revenues over last year, thanks primarily to a 16 percent jump in its Latin American revenues.  Experian did not report profit figures, so we do not know how much revenue Experian is actually making off us inventory ... I mean consumers. 

"Looking ahead across our major businesses, we see further stabilization in parts of North America, we are still cautious on the U.K., while the outlook for Latin America is robust," said CEO Don Robert.  "For the fourth quarter, we expect modest improvement in organic revenue growth."

Experian has its corporate headquarters in Dublin, Ireland, and operational bases in Nottingham, England, Costa Mesa, California, Plano, Texas and Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Its amazing how much profit a company can make when they don't have to pay for the inventory they sell, namely our credit information.

Experian increasing its presence in the tenant screening market

Experian announced Friday a new website designed specifically for the tenant screening industry.  The website will provide instant rental decisions to property managers and tenant screeners.  Experian's new website will provide tenant payment history, residence history including length of residence, and fraudulent application information.  Of course, given Experian's lackluster history at accuracy regarding financial credit reports, tenants need to beware.  Fortunately, the protections of the Fair Credit Reporting Act also apply to tenant consumer reports.

Much like Experian's credit reports, the tenant history reports will provide a score which can be used to determine the risk of renting to the potential tenant.  Just like credit reports, Experian will be required to provide copies of its reports regarding tenants upon request for a small fee.

Experian invades Japan's cyberspace

Information services company Experian has acquired an 88.5% share of A-Care Systems, Japan’s leading e-mail marketing company. A-Care will be blended into Experian’s CheetahMail e-mail marketing unit.


A-Care has more than 1,000 clients across several Japanese sectors, including e-commerce, manufacturing and retail. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The acquisition extends Experian CheetahMail’s global marketing reach. In addition to its New York headquarters, the company has offices in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Dublin, Duesseldorf, London, Melbourne and Paris.

E-mails trying to get you to check your credit report due to "problems" is probably a scam

I have heard people complain about getting unsolicited e-mails from Equifax telling them there are problems with their credit report and advising them to buy their credit report.  This is either a scam by some perp trying to obtain your personal information or a ploy by Equifax to get you to sign up for a credit monitoring service you likely don't need.  Either way, its something to avoid.

If you want to check your credit report, try http://www.annualcreditreport.com/, which is the website that federal law required the credit bureaus to establish to provide one free credit report per credit bureau to each consumer per year.  Better yet, print out and mail in the pdf request form found at http://www.annualcreditreport.com/ and get your credit reports for free without any arbitration clause taking away your right to a jury trial.  You see, http://www.annualcreditreport.com/ redirects consumers to the websites of Experian, Equifax and Trans Union to complete the process of obtaining the free credit reports.  One or more of the bureaus' websites require the consumer to agree to an arbitration clause to access the credit report.  Sending in the pdf form, though, does not activate any such arbitration clause.

"The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated" ... by Experian

Few knew that the rest of Mark Twain's quote attributed the reports of his death to Experian, but Ann Howe found that out the hard way.  Experian decided to start informing any one who asked for Ann Howe of Seattle's credit report that she was no longer among the living.  Problem is, she was and is very much still alive.

Howe tried to refinance her home mortgage but was denied by her bank because Experian told her bank she was dead.  Apparently, her banker thought she was a ghost since she was sitting in front of him when Experian declared her dead, since the bank opted to believe Experian instead of the breathing, talking woman visiting their bank.

What's worse, it took Howe and her daughter months of faxes, notarized papers, phone calls and letters and still Experian would not believe Howe was alive, which meant the bank would not approve the refinance.

Fortunately, Experian finally agreed with Howe's doctors that she was indeed still alive.  Once Experian came to its senses, Howe's credit report was corrected and she was finally able to obtain her loan.

Fair Isaac loses antitrust lawsuit

A Minneapolis jury on Friday ruled against Fair Isaac and in favor of credit bureau Experian in an antitrust lawsuit filed by Fair Isaac against Experian.  Fair Isaac claimed that it had exclusive trademark rights to credit scores utilizing any score range that overlapped 300 to 850.  Fair Isaac claimed that Experian's VantageScore credit score violated its alleged trademark rights.  Unfortunately for Fair Isaac, the Minneapolis jury disagreed.

"Today's verdict is a victory for Experian and for American consumers," said Kerry Williams, group president of credit services and decision analytics at Experian. "By preventing FICO from further stifling competition in the marketplace, the jury's decision will increase consumer choice in credit scoring."

The jury also found that Fair Isaac committed fraud on the Patent and Trademark Office in obtaining its trademark registration.

VantageScore is the credit reporting industry's first credit score developed jointly by the three national credit reporting companies to deliver consistent, objective credit scores across their respective databases. VantageScore provides consumers and businesses with a highly predictive, consistent score that is easy to understand and apply. VantageScore utilizes a range from 501 to 990 that naturally aligns with well-known A, B, C, D and F grade intervals, and is used by four of the top five U.S. financial institutions and eight of the top 10 credit card issuers.

History of the credit bureaus

Here's an interesting post about the history of the credit bureaus - http://bankfiesta.com/All/History-of-Credit-Bureaus-Equifax-Experian-TransUnion-amp-Innovis.