Factor Trust is a consumer reporting agency that provides third parties with consumer reports to assess their creditworthiness and for other purposes as permitted by the law. The company provides a variety of services to consumers as well.
What Is Factor Trust?
Factor Trust is owned by TransUnion, and it serves as an alternative credit bureau. The agency does not communicate or share information with the three major credit bureaus, but they do supply third parties with consumer credit information.
Factor Trust offers consumers the following services:
Credit Reports
Through Factor Trust, consumers can request their free credit report once every 12 months. Simply fill out the form on their website to request your free report.
Fraud Alerts
Factor Trust also allows consumers to request a one-year fraud alert or active duty alert. An extended fraud alert can be requested as well.
Opt-Out of Credit Card Offers
For consumers who want to opt out of credit card offers, Factor Trust offers a prescreen opt-out service as well as an opt-in.
You have three options here:
- Opt-in: You will be eligible to be included on lists for offers of credit or insurance.
- Electronic opt-out for five years: Your name will not be eligible to be included on lists for credit or insurance for a period of five years.
- Permanent opt-out: Your name will not be included on lists for offers of credit or insurance permanently.
To permanently opt out of offers, you will need to print out the form and mail it in. You may also opt-in or opt out by phone.
Security Freeze
Factor Trust also offers security freeze services, but it’s important to note that the freeze will only affect your Factor Trust credit report and not any of your reports with Equifax, TransUnion or Experian.
Through the Factor Trust website, you can:
- Add a freeze to your report. You can add a freeze anytime you like, free of charge. A freeze will allow you to have more control over who can access your credit information. A freeze will not impact your credit score, and you can remove it anytime you like.
- Manage a credit freeze. You give lenders access to your credit information when you are applying for credit, and you can also lift or remove a freeze.
Security freezes are useful tools if you are concerned about fraud and want to ensure that lenders can only access your information when applying for credit.
Dispute
Factor Trust also makes it easy to start a new dispute through its website. If you find an error on your report or believe there is false information, you can fill out their online form to initiate a dispute to have the error removed.
How Does Factor Trust Gets Their Information?
Factor Trust obtains all of its information from credible, reliable sources, including but not limited to:
- Banking institutions
- Creditors
- Debt collectors
- Loan companies
If you find inaccurate information in your report, you can go through the error removal process, which is outlined in greater detail below.
Does Factor Trust Impact Lender Decisions?
Yes and no. Factor Trust does not have the authority to approve or deny credit or loan applications. Instead, the company provides a credit report to a third party that has requested your report.
The third party must have authority to access this report, authorized by:
- You, or
- The law
Loan or credit providers may choose to use the information in the report to approve or deny a claim. Additionally, the report may be used to understand the risks when lending to you, review your payment history and to verify your identity.
If the report has an error on it, you can dispute the error on the report for free.
You can dispute the error with the lender who denied your application and the credit reporting company. The FCRA requires that the companies you contact provide a free, reasonable investigation into your claim and correct any misinformation found in your report.
For the best chance of having the error rectified, you should mail the dispute to the company in question along with an explanation of why you’re disputing the information as well as include a copy of the credit report with the error. You can provide just the portion of the report that has an error.
Why Did I Receive a Notice of Adverse Reaction?
Factor Trust does not send out a Notice of Adverse Reaction. Instead, the notice is sent from lenders when they have denied your credit or loan application. You’ll want to review the report to learn more about the reason for the denial.
However, the notice was not sent by Factor Trust, although the decision for denial may be based on information in the report.
TransUnion’s Factor Trust acts as a consumer reporting agency and plays an integral role in providing key information about you to credit and lending companies authorized to access your information.