Understanding Your Credit History When Your Credit Report Shows Two Different Credit Scores
It’s a good idea to request a copy of your credit report also know as credit rating from the two credit reporting agencies in Canada: Equifax and TransUnion, at least once a year to verify that your personal and financial information is up to date and correct, and to ensure that you have not been the victim of identity fraud. Its possible you may get different credit histories with these two, because your credit information can be kept by more than one credit-reporting agency, and because those agencies do not necessarily share information, it’s important to check all two-credit reports carefully.
It’s quite natural and people do understand well that there is always a possibility to get different credit history with the two different credit rating agencies working separately collecting data of every individual to build consumer credit files, some times errors and omissions do occur with each one exclusive records but if transaction found in both records it is assumed that the record is correct but on the other hand if this transaction is false without the knowledge of consumer then it may be a fraud that happens to consumer record while using social insurance number or any such private identity documents, but what happens if you get two different credit histories with the same credit reporting agency for the same period, indeed it felt confusion but its been happening in Canada and most of the Canadians are not aware of it. Wikipedia is a great knowledge hub where you can find where it’s been highlighted as “More than One Credit History Per Person”.
How do you feel if the same person gives you two different answers to your same question? It doesn’t happen only in Canada, but people can have more than one credit history in some other countries too. The reason behind this double credit history with the same credit rating company is if the person who already has applied for some sort of credit before obtaining a Social Insurance Number would come under two separate credit histories, one with SIN and one without SIN. This is due to the credit reporting structure in Canada. This can lead to two completely separate parallel histories, and often leads to inconsistencies (although typically the person in question will never notice the inconsistencies), because when a lender asks for someone’s credit report with SIN, what the lender gets is different from what he would have gotten if he asked the report without providing the SIN. This is because, contrary to popular belief, when someone gets a new SIN for whatever reason, the two credit files are never merged unless the person requests specifically. As a result, a record with SIN zeroed out is kept separately from a record with SIN. Note this happens without the person even knowing it.
Our social insurance number SIN plays a most important role in our life because it also authenticates our credit history. Most people don’t feel confident while using their SIN publicly or submitting it through phone, mail or email. I have checked this question which most people do have in their mind with the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada on its website http://www.fcac.gc.ca, about this double credit history with or without SIN in the hope that it may highlight some important points for consumers to benefits but could not get the answer even its search engine doesn’t recognize these sentences, “Credit History with or without SIN” and “more than one Credit History per person”. Although this is a highly recommended resource that the Government of Canada offers to the general public that contains general information on how to build or improve credit history, and how to check for signs that identity theft has occurred, also offers a free publication called Understanding Your Credit Report and Credit Score. This publication provides a sample credit report and credit score documents with explanations of the notations and codes that are used. As a Canadian resident, you can order your free copy by mail; available in both soft and hard paper bindings.
You have a choice of either Trans Union or Equifax as the Credit Bureau to obtain your credit check from, as both are equally effective. Trans Union is automated and available to you 24/7 in less than 2 minutes; Equifax is only available during business hours and generally takes between 5-15 minutes to upload to your account. Moreover, always check your credit history while providing your SIN, because it provides all the credit activities, which involve your social insurance number, you can also not even instantly detect frauds and threats to your credit file but report any inconsistency in a timely manner. And if you are getting your credit history by an online resource other than these credit rating companies, always check availability of secure server on specially form submitting page (website address bar should starts with “https://” and a small “lock sign” at the bottom bar of your computer screen) while submitting your social insurance number into the prescribed form used for the purpose.
