I see that your report displays my bank account number, as well as several current account numbers for credit cards, etc. Does anyone who requests a credit report on me see all this personal information?
- GNG
Dear GNG,
Experian does not have bank account information such as checking or savings accounts, so if that is the "bank account number" you are referencing, you received something other than a credit report.
Full account numbers are not provided with your personal credit report. Experian truncates the numbers so that they cannot be used to commit fraud by someone who steals your report or somehow accesses it without your permission. For the same reason, Experian does not list the Social Security number you provided when requesting your credit report, which matched our files as the correct number.
However, any variations of the Social Security number reported as belonging to you will be listed. Doing so can help you identify potential fraud.
Experian also truncates or omits account numbers on credit reports provided to some types of businesses where full account numbers are not needed, as well as on reports used for employment purposes.
In some instances, disclosing full account numbers is necessary. For example in mortgage lending, reports from all of the national credit reporting companies are merged into one report. Without full account numbers they would be unable to match the information accurately.
Thanks for asking.
The "Ask Experian" team