Agents, Landlords & Businesses pulling credit profile with just first name and cell/home phone#

[Account Closed]

A colleague recently pointed this out to me that they routinely screen apartment seekers during the first call simplywith their first name and contact number, often the number they call from. 

Because we are somewhat in competiton with each other, the colleague refrained from spelling out what website they go to but apparently she literally receives a call enquiring about an apartment, asks them their name then if around a mobile device inputs the # they are calling from or one they provided and their first name and the website tells them the persons age, full name, al cities ever lived in, names and ages of relatives, and past & present employers.

Didint really know about this til today or maybe just didnt give it much thought, but it could also be a tool for investment strategies as well and perhaps some of you out there already use this type of initial background check; care to share? 

[Tom Spaeth]

Just a guess but I would guess that this is what they are doing.

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 The alternative is known as a soft credit pull and will obtain a credit score based only on the customer’s name, address and phone number, without the date of birth or social security number, and without any impact on the customer’s credit score. This can be invaluable in advising and working with the customer.

Not all soft credit pulls are equal. There are two types. One type actually gets the “real time” credit score for the consumer. This will be same score as would be reported by the agencies on that day. The other, and somewhat more misleading, soft pull offering is based on “marketing soft pulls.” With “marketing soft pulls”, the company that delivers the score actually has pulled a large number of consumer scores at the same time for “marketing” purposes sometime in the last 90 days or so, and simply returns a score that may be well over 30 days old. Watch what happens if someone misses a mortgage payment, or allows their debt to limit ratio to increase and see how quickly their score can drop. Extending that score to a customer may be worse than not offering the score at all.