unauthorized credit check appearing on my report

What do you mean a hard credit check? Do you mean you think it has affected your score? If a debt collector pulls your report, it doesn't affect your score, but it will show up as a inquiry into your credit. It would only affect your score if you had applied for something like a mortgage, loan or line of credit recently. debt collectors pull credit reports all the time and they don't need your prior authorization. They can do this to assess risks in determining whether or not it's worth pursuing the debt.

No a collector cannot do any unauthorized reporting on your credit report and without your permission. They must notify you five days in advance before doing any such activity. Dispute the item with the CA. if they don????????t verify it, make them aware of the FCRA laws and get it corrected.

Just to clarify, are you talking about inquiries that they checked your report, or do you mean they actually put a new account on your credit report and are reporting it as a "collection account"?

It's an inquiry. There are no collection accounts on my report. This is because the collectors are acting on behalf of a creditor I have in a foreign country.

Yes if they have reason to believe they hold your account,they have permissible purpose to pull your report.Law sux,but it is true.Spelled out in the fair credit reporting act.

That sucks the big one that's for sure. I just had a collector call me on Monday with a copy of my credit report in front of him. Telling me based on my credit he wouldn't loan me any money. Well that's good since I wasn't asking for any!!!!!!!!

ladybug

Next time if they call you up simply hang up. :lol:

These collectors don't own my account. It's still with my old bank in the UK, who I have contacted directly to try and arrange a payment plan.

What I'm really upset about is this: my transunion report says I have applied for credit with the collector???? This seems all wrong. How can my report say I have applied for credit with these people? They don't own my account. It's one thing for my report to show an inquiry, but surely it's a different ball game when it says I have applied for credit?

These collectors don't own my account. It's still with my old bank in the UK, who I have contacted directly to try and arrange a payment plan.

What I'm really upset about is this: my transunion report says I have applied for credit with the collector???? This seems all wrong. How can my report say I have applied for credit with these people? They don't own my account. It's one thing for my report to show an inquiry, but surely it's a different ball game when it says I have applied for credit?

A hard inquiry always shows under the apply for credit link.Personally I do not think it is exactly legal for them to pull a hard since there was no offer of credit,but that is an opinion not a legal documented precedent.

Does anyone know how long this inquiry will stay listed on my report? Can I get it removed?

Thanks for all your help. I appreciate it.

Inquiries that are hard(seen by anyone) can legally remain for two years.If it is on Transunion or Equifax there is a trick to getting rid of them early. Sign up for truecredit at truecredit.com.Make sure you are signing up for the 3 bureau pull service.Update your report every 24 hours. By pulling your report everyday you will overload your reports with soft inqs only you see and the hards will be bumped off.Be careful with this because you do run the risk of a split file which is a pain to reassemble.

Thanks for great info Cajun. What exactly do you mean by a "split file"?

Sometimes a bureau instead of bumping inqs will create two files for you which is not a good thing and they would have to reassemble it.

A collection agency can check your credit report if they have an account for you.