customer provided credit reports. Yes or No?

Question

Hello all,

I recently signed up with Cozy.co and put a unit out for rent. one of the applicants contacted me about not using the Cozy credit check and asked if they could provide their own. They have a subscription to KreditKarma(?) and said they could print me a realtime snapshot of their credit. My response was that as long as it provided the same info regarding payment history and such that i was ok with it. What do you guys think?

Chris Mason · Answer

Throw it in the garbage and run your own, period. Housing seekers, be they tenant applicants or biggerpockets.com real estate investors applying for mortgages, it really doesn't matter, if they are hiding things from you... it's for a reason.

Play nice once and let them know. Once. One notification.

Then, after that... garbage can. Period. Done. Not up for discussion.

JD Martin · Answer

No way. Always pull your own reports. Besides, you should be doing a background and eviction check as well and that's not on kredit karma.

Gail K. · Answer

What the applicant likely meant was CreditKarma which is a free site; it does provide the FICO score from Equifax and Transunion but would NOT provide a landlord with any information regarding accounts in collections, prior judgments, etc..  Fine if you're looking ONLY for a FICO score.

Based on the theory that NOTHING is free on the internet, this site is funded by credit card companies.  Whenever I'm curious about my FICO score I'll check there; I'm always amused because one area consistently lists me a "poor" although my score is always in the 800 range.  How could I raise it according to them?  By "increasing" the number of credit cards I have from the current 2 to 20.

At any rate, we don't accept credit reports an applicant may bring themselves UNLESS (perhaps) they have recently been run during a high security check with our local nuclear plant.

Gail

Ray Harrell · Answer

People are smart and can Photoshop anything. Pull your own reports.

Rodney Morris · Answer

@Lana G. That's good to know. not all "credit scores" are created equally.

@Gail Kaitschuck "recently been run during a high security check with our local nuclear plant." That's funny, i guess you have to set the bar somewhere.

Thanks all for the education. That's why i joined this site, haven't been disappointed yet.

Ray Harrell · Answer

Credit Karma and Credit Sesame and most other sites provide a Vantage score  NOT FICO. A score isnt helpful. You want to see credit activity and only a credit report can show that. Don't get it twisted. Just because you are not tech savvy doesn't mean others aren't. In 5 minutes I can change any credit report to look stellar. It's not difficult at all.

Rodney Morris · Answer

@Jd Martin Cozy offers the services separate or in a package, it's a few bucks cheaper on the applicant if they just do the background. i am currently having an issue with my wifes friend that she rented too. she leased it to her without any of the checks. i will NEVER make that mistake again.

@Ray Harrell i hadn't even thought of that. i am still fairly new to this, going to have to start thinking a little differently.

customer provided credit reports. Yes or No?

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