Post by James R. KuyperMany places will run a credit check on you as part of setting up your
account (in particular, this is likely to be the case for any credit
card or mortgage account).
Some of those places won't let you have
online access until you've answered some questions based upon
information in your credit report - but in my experience, that's still
pretty uncommon, though it's getting more common.
There's some service that does that. One place that used it was/is
the US Postal Service. They aren't interested in my credit. They
are interested that I actually own the address I claim to own, as
the account I was trying to open lets me know about incoming packages
to that address and re-route them elsewhere. (A thief could steal
packages without going anywhere near my home. Of course, the USPS
does keep track of where the package was actually delivered, so a
thief using his own real address would be pretty stupid.)
I am disappointed in some of the questions they ask. They seem to
know about my car (there's nothing about that on my credit report.
I paid cash. And even if I did get a car loan, that wouldn't include
the make, model, year and color of the car, so maybe they have the
auto registration list), but so do a lot of people - my neighbors,
anyone who sees me parking it at work, etc.
They asked me when the house I was living in was built. Well, *I*
didn't know the exact year. Some of my neighbors know that. They
ask about loans / credit card accounts and what year I opened them.
Generally, it seems too easy to get by, although I have failed it
twice. I don't know at what point it quits letting me try, but
when I failed it once I had to wait until the next day.