Credit Tip of the week

Credit Tip of the Week:

www.optoutprescreen.com

Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), the Consumer Credit Reporting Companies are permitted to include your name on lists used by creditors or insurers to make firm offers of credit or insurance that are not initiated by you ("Firm Offers"). In other words when you personally or one of your clients applies for a mortgage and credit gets pulled your information gets sold.

The idea behind this was to allow for consumers to receive offers from other mortgage companies and insurance companies when you are looking at obtaining financing for a home. What has happened though is banks/brokers buy your information from 3 major credit reporting agencies and then use deceptive practices to lure your client away. Some of those practices include calling the client pretending to be the original loan officer, sending out applications with teaser rates to try and bait and switch potential clients.

Under the FCRA their www.optoutprescreen was created to allow consumers to opt out of their information being sold. You can go to the website before your credit is pulled or after and opt out for the next 5 years or write a letter and opt out for life. This is a great option to avoid having your information sold to somebody you don’t even know.