Who's Interested in Your Credit Report?

Let’s assume that you are looking for an investment vehicle to park a portion of your monthly income or salary. In this case, what’s the first step that you would take? Most likely, you would conduct a thorough analysis of the company whose fund or stock you’re planning to invest in. Perhaps you would go through its past performance records to try and gauge how well it’s likely to do in the future. Else, you may carefully peruse the organization’s financial statements to identify its strengths, weaknesses, threats, and opportunities. It’s only when you are completely satisfied with your investigation that you’d put your hard earned money into the company, right?

Similarly, when you approach a financial institution for a credit card or ask a bank to grant you a loan, these organizations conduct their own due diligence to assess whether you are worth lending money to. They pull your credit score or evaluate the information on your credit report to decide the terms of the loan, such as rates of interest, or penalties in case of default. Not just banks and financial institutions, but even landlords or home insurance companies can access your credit report to determine the risk of doing business with you. Given below is a list of organizations that are likely to pull your credit report in order to check your creditworthiness.

1. Potential Creditors: Potential lenders such as banks or credit card companies check your report to decide upon the terms of a loan, such as interest rates, credit limit, or loan amount.
   
   
2. Current Lenders: If you already have a credit card or loan, your creditor may pull your report at regular intervals to determine whether to change your account terms or keep it the same. Any recent negative information on your report may cause the lender to increase your rate or close off your account completely.
   
   
3. Landlords: Recent delinquencies, foreclosures, or evictions on your credit report may result in a potential landlord turning down your rental application.
   
   
4. Utility Companies: If your credit report shows you as a risky customer, you may be charged a big security deposit.
   
   
5. Insurance Companies: Whether you’re buying a home or a car, you need to purchase insurance along with it. Late payments and collection accounts on your report may raise the amount of premium that you’re asked to pay.
   
   
6. Debt Collection Companies: Can you really pay back the amount that you owe? Debt collectors may access your report to figure out an answer to this question, as well to obtain other information, such as your address and employer details.
   
   
7. Current and Prospective Employers: Employers are legally allowed to check your credit report but not your score; however, they must have written permission before they can do so. You should be aware that events such as bankruptcies or high debt levels could keep you from getting that coveted job, raise, or promotion.
   
   
8. Government Agencies: Certain government institutions are permitted to access your report to ascertain if you’re eligible for public assistance, to process your application for a government license, or to determine child support payments.

Since a large number of institutions can check your credit report, it’s in your best interest to make sure that your record is free from errors and derogatory marks. You can either do this yourself or hire a credit repair company for the purpose. At any rate, it is important that you access your report at regular intervals to stay on top of your credit situation.

A clean report and a good score will not only enable you to get that loan you require, but also ensure that you obtain it at good rates. In fact, at Fund&Grow, we’ve devised a system through which we help clients with good credit get as much as $250,000 of unsecured credit at 0% interest. For a flat fee, we walk them through the process, so that they need not worry about too many details, and can instead concentrate on running their businesses. So if you know someone who needs a loan, have them call us at (800) 996-0270, and we’ll help them get the funds that they require.