Give SSN or No and What does my report contain?

Employers, finance company, Insurance, landlord and others do not need SSN to pull your bureau report from any of the three [Experian, Equifax, Transunion] consumer bureaus. Your name and address is sufficient to find your report. Then why do above people request SSN, these is my assumption; just to confirm you are who you are. Report returned from the bureaus contains your SSN, current address and past addresses. If you provide incorrect information bureau report will flag.  If you give incorrect address or invalid first and last name bureaus will not return any report. Some times even if you gave right address/name and bureau did not return report that means they might not have your report.  Not every bureau will have your information and some time all three bureaus will have different scores [Depends on which credit card and loans you have]. Also note each bureau has better coverage in certain parts of the country and take note when you relocate.

What exactly does your report contain: Below are sections:

1. Section 1:   Name, Alias Names, Current Address, Past Addresses, Employer
   
2. Section 2: Profile Summary [public records, past due amount, number of inquires, number of accounts, total balance in the credit cards, total on all your credit cards, total mortgage amount]
   
3. Section 3: Your FICO score and score factors used [Request your lenders to explain this]
   
4. Section 4: Your open/closed/neutral trade lines [all open and closed credit cards, open and closed student loan, car loans, house loans and any back accounts]
   
5. Section 5: Information about who pulled your report. 
   
6. Section 6: Any flags either by homeland security or by other lenders
   

Every bureau bylaw is suppose to provide you a free copy of your report without a score, when you get your report make sure you look into section 4 [Trade Lines] and section 5 [Inquires]. Make sure all the opened credit card are yours and also make sure nobody is pulling your report without you knowing. My advice is to utilize this free report and make sure review your report once a year to avoid identity theft.

You can also call bureau and set a lock on your report, bureaus will lock your report and will not give away until you provide the approval. This is one extreme way of protecting your identity.  If you have done this then just have it unlocked before you go for a loan. 

In the next blog I will post few technical stuff on consumer reports.

Good Night