StartinSanDiego

Pull a free credit report for yourself and provide it with the application. That might circumvent the need for another.

Also, you should just pay the background check/credit pull fee for your top choice apartment, not just any apartment you've looked at.

sdsearch

Some apartment checks only look at / care about the credit score. But in that case, if your credit score is very good despite your inquiries (as you would want it to be, of course, to support getting approved for the most credit card apps!), you shouldn't need to worry either.

I had printed my credit score (from a temporary CitiBuilder promo!), by chance, right before appllying for my apartment a few weeks ago, and that score being very good was all I needed (plus long time at previous apartment and long time at my current job may have helped them not care about anything more).

chemist661

Most apartments are more interested in negative information such as chargeoffs, evictions, etc. Of course, having adequate income to pay the rent is quite important.

If your scores are high, you should have no problems.

webazoid

Getting a new job and moving soon. Are employer or landlord request to check your credit hard pulls? How do those credit reports compare to the ones you get yourself?

jonnyd13

My most recent ones were hard pulls. Usually they have you sign something stating you agree to their background and credit check. Common practice.

FlyingTrojan

My employers pull was not, but my last landlord was.

I also had an issue when I was just out of college with my first landlord where's they used my free credit reports instead of paying for a service. Suffice to say, that experience ended pretty shadily.

johnnie198x

Yeah, I wouldn't give my report to anyone.

reft

Employer pulls are supposed to be soft. There are also other places they may look besides credit, including Lexis-Nexus and for-pay services that provide pre-populated amalgamated records. If they use these services, there might not even be a soft pull.

On the Landlord (LL) side:

The credit report request can be legitimate, because landlords want to get paid. They have bills too.

There's also a chance that a prospective LL may not get anywhere near your credit report:

The credit report request can be just a screening tool. It can scare off people with poor payment histories from even applying. The same technique can be used by employers to screen out the 'irresponsible.'

Some landlords do not want to get involved with handling the personal information on the credit report and/or do want to pay to pull the report on their own, which is why they ask the prospective tenant to provide their own copy.

When they do use it, it can be used to do things the LL can't otherwise do legally. For example, some landlords do not want to rent to young people, so they request the credit report because most young adults will have thin files and it's used as a reason to deny renting. Instead of illegal age discrimination. You can suspect this if after they meet you: "You seem like a nice person. I don't need to see your credit report." and you didn't do any Jedi mind tricks.

I probably don't need to say this, but having them take your information and plug it into annualcreditreport.com or similar, probably will not end well. Run. (Tell them you already used up your one free one.) If the LL does a legitimate CR pull, you should see it on your credit report.

And on the bright side, maybe they will pull only one bureau.

Frequent Freak

This has been my experience as well.

You can always ask, not only whether it's hard but also which bureau. A good HR person will understand the concern. Also with employment I'd only agree to it towards the end of the process.

reft

http://bostonherald.com/business/rea...o_the_closings

The article suggests Equifax may have a program that your mortgage lender can use to place you on a 'watch list' and if your habits start to look 'funny', they may notify the prospective lender.

It may be an alternative form of a credit monitoring service, where instead of EQ monitoring your credit and letting you know about inquiries and score changes, EQ monitors your credit to tell someone else. If you read the fine print of a CC agreement or Loan application, you have probably already given permission.

No information on actual uptake of the program -- Speculation: the story could be worked up from a Equifax PR piece for a new service that EQ is offering.

Besides mortgages, there might be a potential AoR implication in the future. If could be a good thing if it allows a computer to approve a marginal application, since they have more information, or it could end AoR's as currently known. Might also be used for non-instant approvals. You apply, they wait a few days, look for alerts. If none, you get approved. If it appears you are doing an AoR, maybe you don't.

Does TU/EX follow? (have they already?)

PainCorp

Equifax has been getting a lot of information according to another article I read, including pay stubs, if you've ever filed for unemployment, etc. They have much more information than we wish they had....

MSPDeltaDude

This is far from anything new. Been going on for at least ten years.

reft

A pull the day before a final mortgage approval? Yes. Occasional pulls by existing creditors? Yes.

24/7 high frequency credit monitoring with the results going to someone you don't have an open tradeline with yet?

That seems new.

istroke

Sorry if this is incorrect place for this thread.

So on 8/4/13, I got a hard inquiry from DirectTV. I don't remember signing up for DirectTV. Though there was one promotion to sign up for emails to receive Southwest sometimes last month?

Anybody else got a hit from DirectTV? Can I dispute this?

Thanks.

Jesperss

What does this have to do with a credit card?