Equifax credit report issue

[Barbara]

I’m currently looking into renting a new apartment. They run up my credit, and according to them I have a very low credit score (below 500) with more than 20 recent credit inquiries. That seem odd to me, so I went to Equifax.com and checked my credit score… sure enough it was just shy of 700. What should be my next move? Can I simply give them a copy of my credit score?

[Stacy Wall]

You need to pull your actual reports

Don’t waste your time. They won’t accept it anyway, and with a good reason. For starters – they need to pull it thru their systems, so they know the numbers have not been tampered with. Nowadays, anyone with Photoshop can print pretty much whatever they want.

The second thing you need to understand that Equifax sell consumers vantage score, while the score they used is almost certainly Fico. These two different scores run on a totally different scale. While Fico runs from 300 – 850, vantage starts at 500 and runs all the way up to 990. In fact, a 500 Fico is comparable to below 700 vantage… (See this table).

Third – Home renters are not interested in the number of inquiries on your report, not in the actual score. All they want to see is whether or not you pay your debts on time, i.e. if you have late payments, defaults, charge offs or collections on your report. Actually, I’m surprised that they even mentioned your score as the problem. Is there other negative information on your report?

As to the 20 recent credit inquiries – what you really need to do is pull your credit report from the 3 different credit bureaus (Equifax, Experian & TransUnion), and check them thoroughly. You may find out that one report show them while the other two are clean. You may even find out that someone else is applying for credit in your name!

It doesn’t cost money to pull your credit report. You are entitled to a Free Annual Credit Report from each of the 3 major credit bureaus every 12 months (Here’s how to pull them).

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