Spend money to fix personal credit? Don't believe it

Now, the Internet is full of such advertisements: spending money can repair personal credit reports. Enter keywords such as "credit repair" to see many so-called credit reporting companies that claim to help individuals repair credit information. When you have overdue information on your personal credit report, will you believe it when you see such an advertisement?

The personal credit report is a record of personal credit information issued by the credit information center of Chinese Min min bank, including basic personal information, credit transaction information and other information. The credit report can reflect the basic situation of personal and corporate social credit, and consumers generally use personal credit reports when handling housing loans, car loans, and applying for credit cards. Once there is more overdue information on the report, it may affect the processing of loans, the application of credit cards, etc. At this time, some financial consumers may listen to the advertisements on the Internet and want to improve their personal credit information through the so-called "credit repair" channel.

"There is no doubt that all 'credit repairs' are scams and illegal." Dong Ximiao, chief researcher of CmF, said that according to the Regulations on the Administration of the Credit Reporting Industry, there is no practice of "credit repair" in the field of credit reporting. Those "credit repairs" under the banner of "credit investigation overdue is not terrible, and repairing credit information is new", deliberately confusing the difference between credit investigation repair and credit reporting objections, the real purpose is to defraud relevant fees, steal personal information, etc.

In fact, neither credit reporting agencies nor commercial banks or other information providers have the right to arbitrarily change or delete credit information correctly displayed in credit reports. However, individuals can object to incorrect information. Article 26 of the Measures for the Administration of Credit Reporting Business, which came into effect on 1 January 2022, provides that where information subjects find that there are errors or omissions in the information, they have the right to raise objections to the credit reporting agency or information provider. Therefore, if an individual finds that there is a problem with the credit record, he or she can directly submit it to the financial institution or credit reporting agency and request correction.

In the view of Liu Ying, a researcher at the Chongyang Institute of Financial Research of Chinese Min University, the current frequent credit scams show that on the one hand, people pay more and more attention to personal credit reporting status, and they all hope to be "full score" status. On the other hand, everyone has a limited grasp of credit-related knowledge, where to check, whether to charge, whether to change, many questions are still vague, which gives lawbreakers an opportunity.

Liu Ying believes that financial institutions still need to strengthen the education of financial consumers, and consumers themselves should also consciously maintain personal credit. Banks and other institutions generally adopt flexible management for non-malicious overdue. After the default, the bank will generally notify the individual in the form of text messages, telephone calls, etc. at the first time, and financial consumers should also pay more attention to the relevant notices and deal with them at the first time to maintain their personal credit.

"Personal credit reporting is everyone's 'second identity card', and we must cherish and maintain personal credit records." For financial consumers, Dong Ximiao suggested that we should usually develop the habit of borrowing reasonably and living within our means, and not over-lending and blindly borrowing. Individuals should repay all kinds of loans and credit card arrears in a timely manner and maintain a good credit record. If the repayment is not made in time due to special reasons, it should take the initiative to communicate and negotiate with the financial institution.

In response to scams such as "credit repair" and "agent complaints", Dong Ximiao believes that relevant departments should introduce special measures to increase the intensity of crackdown and disposal. At the same time, we will improve the complaint handling mechanism of financial consumers to distinguish between normal complaints and malicious complaints. In addition, we will establish a multi-departmental linkage coordination mechanism such as finance, justice, and public security to improve the deterrent and accuracy of the crackdown.

Source: Economic Daily

Guangzhou Daily New Flower City Editor: Su Wanqian