Current or potential creditors — like credit card issuers, auto lenders and mortgage lenders — can pull your credit score and report to determine creditworthiness as well. Credit history is a major factor in determining (a) whether to give you a loan or credit card, and (b) the terms of that loan or credit card.
The right to be made aware if information in a credit report is being used against you. The right to ask for your credit score. Additionally, the list of those who can view your report is limited to those with a legal/valid need (for example, a creditor, issuer, employer or landlord)
Certain individuals can check your credit with your permission, including landlords and employers. Banks, insurers, lenders, and utility companies may also pull a credit report if you've applied for credit or service with them.
States That Ban or Restrict Credit Checks for Employment
At least eleven states have passed laws prohibiting employers from pulling credit reports at all or restricting how and when employers may use them to make hiring or other job decisions. Those states are: California.
Many employers, especially when hiring for positions that include financial management, perform credit checks on job candidates before making employment offers. Employers may use credit report information to verify an applicant's identity and to look for signs of excessive debt or past financial mismanagement.
Without your permission, your employer cannot check your credit report. Your refusal may leave your employer thinking that you have something to hide. Under federal law, there is nothing in that situation that protects you from being terminated or not getting hired by a prospective employer.
Your credit report can be securely accessed by a company if they need information about you – for example, when you request to set up mobile phone contract, apply for a mortgage, or get a loan.
Who has access to a Credit Information Report? Your Credit Information Report (CIR) is a detailed document that can only be checked by potential lenders, credit card providers, or existing lending institutions to ease your loan approval apart from you.
Even those who want access to your report can only ask for it if they have a legally permissible reason to do so. Both the credit reporting bureau and the person seeking access without a “permissible purpose” can be held liable if they breach the FCRA.
The credit report access keys on the license are your name, address, and date of birth, all of which are essentially public information. The driver's license number itself is not relevant, since the credit bureaus don't use that as an identifier.
Not just anyone can request a copy of your credit report. Unless there's a permissible purpose, most people cannot see your credit history. The general public — including family, friends and other people — can't just request a copy of your report from a credit bureau.
When you request a copy of your credit report, you will see a list of anyone who has requested your credit report within the past year, including lenders, credit card companies, or landlords who have requested your report.
What is the highest credit score possible? To start off: No, it's not possible to have a 900 credit score in the United States. In some countries that use other models, like Canada, people could have a score of 900. The current scoring models in the U.S. have a maximum of 850.
Financial institutions, other lenders, and companies with what's called "permissible purpose" can access your Equifax credit report to help in making certain types of decisions about you.
Information in a consumer report cannot be provided to anyone who does not have a purpose specified in the Act. Companies that provide information to consumer reporting agencies also have specific legal obligations, including the duty to investigate disputed information.
By law, you can get a free credit report each year from the three credit reporting agencies (CRAs). These agencies include Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion.
No, your financial adviser will only have access to information approved and provided by you and your husband. This information may come out if you and your husband were to submit your credit reports to the adviser for advice on debt management, but you would be the one providing your credit information to the adviser.
Before banks, savings and loan associations, credit unions, credit card issuers or other financial institutions may give financial information about you to a Federal agency, certain procedures must be followed. You may be asked to consent to make your financial records available to the Government.
You can access someone else's credit report by directly contacting one of the credit bureaus (TransUnion, Equifax, and Experian). Each of these bureaus technically gives their ratings independently, but all three of the scores should be quite similar for the same person.
While your next employer may take a look at your credit history, unlike lenders, they cannot see your credit score (or your credit account numbers). This is one of the most common myths about credit scores.
Lenders request these scores when evaluating consumer credit applications. Lenders determine which credit report and credit score they want to access on you. They can pull from any or all three of the bureaus. So it's smart to know your FICO® Scores from all three bureaus.
Employers won't see your three-digit credit score, but they can see your payment history, bankruptcies and liens.
FICO Score
Very poor: 300 to 579. Fair: 580 to 669. Good: 670 to 739. Very good: 740 to 799. Excellent: 800 to 850.
In most cases, you cannot be fired solely because of bad credit or a low credit score. However, employers in certain industries like financial services can legally fire employees if their poor financial health is seen as a risk.