This is a step by step guide to evaluate your Report

Applicant Snapshot
This is a quick view summary of what you will see in the rest of the report. It provides you with the Credit Score, and the results of any other report you ran (i.e eviction, tele-check, criminal etc) If any negative information is contained in any of those reports, you will see a Red Stop Sign. This means that you should pay close attention to this section of the report. In the Positive/Negative accounts section you will see how many positive or negative accounts this person had per month. Again, this is only a summary. To view the actual accounts you may click on the (jump to) link, this will take you directly to that given section of the report. Finally, the snapshot may tell you this persons total debt amount (adds up all of the balances for open accounts on the credit report) and the Total monthly minimum payment (adds up all the minimum payments on the credit report). If it is not provided in the snapshot, however, please note that you may add up the totals yourself by referring to the actual credit report data.

Prior Address Locator Search (Social Security Search)
1. Name
You may see a different name on the PALS section. This occurs when your Prospective tenant cosigns an account. Their social is then attached to that account, in turn the address information on that account attaches to the social. You may also see variations in names or AKA’s. This happens when the Person changes their legal name for a variety of reasons, an obvious reason being Marriage.

2. Addresses
The addresses displayed in the PALS section of the report are obtained by third Party inquiries. Your prospective tenant did not necessarily physically live at all of these addresses. If they ever used the address as a mailing address, billing address, to apply for a credit card, loan, etc. then in the inquiry the address would be documented and provided to the bureaus. This is the reason for some overlapping of dates.
3. Date of birth
Report is generated by the Bureaus. Any time any one inquires (pulls credit report) your applicant’s credit report, they have to provide a current address and date of birth (not all the time). The Bureau collects data from the inquiring party. The records might show a slightly different date of birth compared to the credit report or no date of birth at all.

1. Consumer Credit Report (Trans-Union)

First you have to look at the Credit Score. The credit scores range between 400 to 850 For lenders, banks, and financial institutions anything below 600 is not a preferred credit score. But don’t just look at credit score. Please check other factors carefully (explanation below)
Credit Legend
750+ Excellent
677 Average
620 and below Not Good
If you see a score of 9003 or 9004, it means that this person does not have enough credit to generate a score. An individual has to have at least 6 accounts (credit card, store card, any loans etc.) in the past 6 months in order to generate a score. No credit is better than bad credit.
Employer’s Information: this information only shows up when it is reported to the bureaus, you will not always see employer’s information and it may not always be accurate.

2. Credit Agency Notice
Code 0084 means that this social security number belongs to this individual. Any time you see a code other than 0084,
If you get the notice “Similar Social in files”, it’s either they have two SSN in bureaus file or you typed one or two digits incorrectly when you ordered the report.
Unless you receive the message unable to locate the subject, you DID receive your applicant’s report.
If you received notice unable to locate the subject, please check back with your applicant and make sure you input correct information. (for your protection, request a copy of their ID and SSN card)

3. Summary of Account
Positive Accounts – your applicant has been paying everything on time
Negative Accounts - accounts with 30 or 60 or 90 days late payment account
Public Records – any kind of lien, bankruptcy, judgment
Collection Accounts – if an individual does not pay any account longer than 90 days it will transfer to collection agency or collection department.
Basically, you want the tenant to have a lot of positive accounts and no negative, public record, or collection accounts.

4. Credit Summary
Credit Summary shows payment record information about accounts. If you see a number next to the payment record; it belongs to your applicant. And the number will indicate how many accounts belong to that payment record.

5. Trade Total
This shows total dollar amount of trade accounts, look carefully at past due amounts.

6. Creditor Record
This shows more detailed information about negative and public record accounts; you will see this record when the creditor has reported to the bureaus.

7. Creditor Payment Record
More detailed information about payment record. Anything with a red dot is indicating negative payment records. This means an individual did not make any payments over 120 days and the creditor charged off (ready to transfer to collection) or it is in collection.
You don’t want to see a lot of red dots. It is likely that if your applicants can not make credit card payments, they will have hard time paying rent on time. Yellow dots also indicate late payments.

8. Collection Items & Public Record
Detailed collection and public records account information. Carefully look at the date and status. If status shows satisfied, then it is a paid collection. If there is no status the account is still open and owing.

9. Inquiries
List of companies which pulled credit report on this individual. Whenever your applicant applies for any credit card or any kind of loans and the credit report is checked, an inquiry will be documented here.

Eviction Record
Eviction record come directly from the state court database. Courts record evictions by name and address only. Court does not record their data by SSN.
If you see that the name and address matches, then the eviction record belongs to your applicant.
If name matches but address does not match, then the eviction report most likely belongs to someone with a similar name.
To verify, check the eviction date and see Prior address search and make sure you do not see any address matches with your applicant.

Important Note: If a rental applicant is refused for any reason based on information in this report, you are required by law to give the applicant a "Denial of Application to Rent" letter. If you do not have this letter, you may print a copy by going to our tenant screening page and downloading it for free. If you have any more questions, feel free to email us at anytime.