Whether you are looking for a loan to finance a new car, go on a well deserved vacation or need to borrow money for personal reasons, the best thing to do before you approach any credit provider is find out if you are blacklisted and if your own individual credit record is considered bad. Knowing how a potential credit provider is going to see your financial history may give you an advantage. For instance, if there are any mistakes and someone has put a black mark against your name in error, you can get this cleared up and sorted out before any application forms are filled out.
Every credit active consumer in the country is having their financial history recorded month after month via credit providers reporting data to the different credit bureau’s. If you have various store accounts, a credit card, a home loan or vehicle finance etc, you are being recorded continuously according to how well you make your regular repayments on those accounts.
By SA law you are entitled to one credit report a year at no charge from a credit bureau such as TransUnion (formerly known in South Africa as ITC). Your personal “payment profile” or “account history” is what is important and reflects account payments that have been made on time to credit providers as well as missed payments and late payments. Whether you have been handed over to a lawyer for collection or not, this record will also indicate any accounts that are over three months in arrears and the credit provider has noted that you are in default, or “blacklisted” you as many people seem to refer to it these days.
If you have applied for credit in the last two years or how often you may have applied, or have had any court judgments against you, this information all gets recorded on your personal report. When you approach a bank, shop or any other financial service provider to open an account, apply for a loan or other types of credit, the fist thing the credit provider will do is contact the credit bureau for access to your personal credit report.
They will then use your report as a large part of how they determine whether or not you will qualify for the credit you have applied for. This is why it is important and will help you to apply for your own free personal credit report check to know yourself who has blacklisted you recently or in the past. You need to scrutinise your financial history that is being recorded on a regular basis in order to be certain that the way you manage your personal debt is being recorded accurately.
As stated above, the way you obtain a copy of your financial history is by approaching the credit bureau. The easiest and quick way is to go online and apply for your free credit report from TransUnion (formerly ITC) which can be done conveniently from their website and downloaded. You can go one step further and get your report with notifications meaning they will inform you via text message or email when there are key changes made to your report.
At the end of the day it is all of our responsibility to keep our different account payments, credit card payments etc up to date and make sure we handle our financial lives rescpectably. Keep up to date with how your credit providers are reporting on your finances by downloading your free credit check report to find out if and why a creditor has blacklisted you and if you are considered creditworthy.