Get ready to have your CoreScore™ exposed to lenders. But wait... what’s your CoreScore™ you ask? It is a new credit report from CoreLogic, a US based information repository, and it will add brand new insights to your lenders as they look at you prior to loan approval. CoreLogic’s product details state, that its new CoreScore™ report is designed to provide increased transparency into a borrower’s credit history. It is a way for lenders to find and increase new lending opportunities and mitigate risk by “identifying previously hidden credit behavior.” So lenders can fully benefit from this new report, CoreLogic will offer a fully decisionable, easy-to-interpret scoring solution.
CoreLogic boldly advertises it as: "The future of credit has arrived." What this means to you the consumer is lenders will now be able to view previously unavailable information when making their lending decisions and this can potentially cost you more money in higher interest rates. These new developments in credit reporting show the innovative way lenders are trying to tap into a larger base of customers who don't fall within the traditional credit reporting system. "Putting you into the system is not necessarily a benefit if you're not going to get affordable credit" said Chi Chi Wu, an attorney at the National Consumer Law Center, a public interest law group. The information that CoreLogic is peddling to mortgage lenders right now will be on their report within 23 days of a new occurrence and taps nearly 700 million real estate transactions and 50 million courthouse records and includes:
- Properties owned—with and without debt obligations
- Mortgage obligations with companies that may not report to traditional credit reporting agencies
- Property legal filings, such as notices of default
- Property tax amounts and payment status
- Estimated market values on all U.S. properties owned
- Rental applications and evictions
- Inquiries and charge-offs from payday and online lenders
- Consumer-specific bankruptcies, liens, judgments and child support obligations
Consumer advocates are concerned that by including additional information like payday lending, which is notorious for higher fees and interest rates, the financial profile of a consumer is worsened not improved, especially in a time of economic crisis like we are experiencing now. Poverty is spreading through American suburbs because of falling wages, record high unemployment and a dismal housing market, so Americans have increasingly turned to high interest short term loans like payday loans and loans that are easily accessed via the internet. The changes this new CoreScore™ will bring to this environment could potentially push people who could previously get approved for low rates into higher risk brackets, and therefore give the lenders justification for charging higher interest rates. "The companies don't care if it's accurate, or up to date, or what the consequences are," said Marc Rotenberg, executive director at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a public interest research center.
There are also privacy concerns from several other "watch dog" groups who are looking into the CoreScore™ more thoroughly too.
Right now the CoreScore™ is available for, and geared toward mortgage and home equity lenders, but by the end of 2012 will be adapted to include other lending programs, like car loans as well. Debra Rothrock, vice president and product line management for CoreLogic said "customers can request one free report each year directly from the company via their toll free number, and can dispute any inaccuracies." (877-532-8778) Be careful as you read that statement. Make no mistake about it, YOU are not CoreLogic's customer. You are their data while lenders are their true customers, and that is cause for additional concern from consumer attorney Wu who said, "credit report disputes are hard to remedy." The report should also become available in the upcoming year through www.annualcreditreport.com,
The partnership with FICO, the most widely used credit scoring solution by lenders nationwide, gives this new “comprehensive consumer credit risk solution” a lot of lender traction. This means, the odds are it’s not going away any time soon, and your lenders are going to know more about you than they ever have before.
It is NOW more important than ever, to know what your credit health is and start getting financially fit. We're here to help you and we'll keep you posted on CoreScore.