Posts Tagged :

rights and privacy

Know your rights - What to do if you’re being chased by a debt collector
Know your rights: What to do if you’re being chased by a debt collector

There’s nothing like owning a ferocious guard dog for dealing with debt collectors. Chomp, chomp, chomp. There goes the arm of that dastardly fella. Well, not really. Setting the dog on the debt collector isn’t going to solve your problems – it’ll just make them worse. Debt collectors don’t even taste that nice (or so we’re told). It’s easy to stick your head in the sand when you can’t (or forget to) pay a bill. But leaving all those envelopes…

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My boss wants to check my credit score
Help! My new boss wants to check my credit report

Imagine you’re on the cusp of getting a hot new job, and your prospective boss says they’ll need to do a credit check. You’re pretty sure there’s some bad info on there, and anyway, isn’t it a breach of privacy? Fret no more, dear reader: we bring good news. Firstly, it’s true that other parties can check your credit report – landlords, recruiters, telcos, insurance providers and utility companies, as well as employers. However, they can’t do it without your…

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So you think you don’t have a credit history …

An acquaintance said to me – rather smugly – the other day, “I don’t need to check my credit score, because I don’t have a credit history.” “Oh, you don’t?” I said. “Have you checked it in the past and discovered you didn’t have a profile in the system?” “No,” he said. “But I’ve never had any hire purchases or a car loan, so they won’t have anything on me.” Many people think that a credit history is built solely…

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Dog digging in the sand
Help! I want to delete my credit history

We got an email the other day from a guy who actually said “help me delete my credit history”. He’d registered for Credit Simple, discovered his credit score was in the 200s, and decided the best thing was to just wipe it all off the history of the world, immediately and forever. Great idea in theory. And many people point to other parts of the world where there’s such a thing as “the right to be forgotten“, where you can…

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