Money Talk with Liz Pulliam Weston: Who’s checking your credit report?
Dear Liz: As part of our mortgage refinance, my wife and I were provided copies of our credit reports and scores by the credit union making our loan. Our scores are great, ranging from 777 to 819, but I was surprised to see in the negative remarks section a note that I had “too many inquiries.” Reviewing the list I saw one business I recognized (a new brokerage account), one of our credit card issuers and four inquiries from CBC Innovis. What is CBC Innovis and how can I tell them to butt out of my credit history? I’m just glad I have good credit and their poking around didn’t have a material effect on our ratings. Others might not be so fortunate.
Answer: CBC Innovis is a reporting agency that provides a variety of services, including offering credit reports, tax transcripts and appraisal, title and settlement services to lenders.
If the inquiries weren’t connected to your refinance deal, they might be related to a job application, because CBC Innovis also provides employment screening and Social Security number validation. It offers skip tracing and other services for collection agencies and landlords, but given your scores and your situation, those are unlikely reasons for the inquiries.
In any case, you have nothing to be worried about. The only reason you got the “too many inquiries” message is because there wasn’t much else negative to say about your credit situation, which is excellent. Inquiries in general should be a minor concern for most people, since most have little or no effect on their scores.
Unfortunately, it’s pretty tough to tell a company to “butt out” of your credit history, since a variety of companies have perfectly legal access to your information. If you really want to lock down your reports, you can consider a credit freeze, but you’ll still have to “unlock” your information to various companies when you want a loan. For more on credit freezes, visit the Consumers Union website and search on “security freeze.”
Lender wants to see tax return
Dear Liz: I had a home equity line of credit for about 15 years and was never late on a payment. I didn’t always carry a balance, but when I did, I paid more than the minimum required. My lender froze my account because I refused to sign an agreement to give access to my IRS records. What should I do?
Answer: If you want to tap your home equity, you’ll sign the agreement.
In the boom years, many banks abandoned prudent lending practices and didn’t bother to verify borrowers’ stated incomes. That has changed, and virtually every new mortgage these days requires borrowers to give lenders access to their recent tax returns as filed with the IRS.
So you can close this account if you want, but a new lender is going to want to see the same records.
You may feel your current lender’s demand is invasive, since you’ve handled the line of credit responsibly in the past. But high default and foreclosure rates have lenders spooked. Yours has obviously decided to verify that you are the low-risk customer that you seem to be, so if you want access to the line of credit, you have to play ball.
Beware of free credit report imitators
Dear Liz: One of your latest articles recommended checking your credit report. I tried doing this, but in order to get a free credit report, all of the sites requested that I sign up for credit monitoring and others services that cost money. How do I get a truly free credit report?
Answer: You go to the one and only site that offers the federally mandated free look at your reports: AnnualCreditReport.com. The other sites are lookalikes that play on consumer confusion to make a profit. Some are even openly flouting a new regulation that requires them to disclose they’re not the real deal. Steer clear.
Liz Pulliam Weston is the author of the book “Your Credit Score: Your Money and What’s at Stake.” Questions for possible inclusion in her column may be sent to 3940 Laurel Canyon., No. 238, Studio City, CA 91604, or via the “Contact Liz” form at https://www.asklizweston.com. Distributed by No More Red Inc.
