RE: Rent Check credit bureau : Comment by footloose:

Not sure where Footloose gets his information from but here is the actual consumer protection law regarding Rent Checks' legal obligation to disclose information being held in an information bank

Buddy! they are and always will be operating as a credit bureau!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! they provide the information to landlords which is obtained from Equifax and Transunion in addition to keeping tenant files from participating landlord so called "Members" therefore they must adhere to abide by both Transunion and Equifax disclosure policies and our very own Canadian access to information Laws! YES!! they must provide your personal records!!!!!!

PIPEDA seems to imply/state that you have the right to access any personal information held by a business. Whether they are a Credit Bureau or not would seem irrelevant.

4.9 Principle 9 — Individual Access

Upon request, an individual shall be informed of the existence, use, and disclosure of his or her personal information and shall be given access to that information. An individual shall be able to challenge the accuracy and completeness of the information and have it amended as appropriate.

Rent Check Credit Bureau is primarily an organization to be used by rental landlords and landlord associations Its basic purpose is to provide information to landlords and their related associations about tenants and prospective tenants wishing to rent residential properties such as apartments, homes and condos.

Many individual landlords belong to a landlord association. When a prospective tenant wishes to rent a property, the landlord will either contact their association or contact Rent Check Credit Bureau directly and request a Report on the background of the prospective tenant. Such information supplied would include how long did the tenant live at his/her previous rental accommodation, was the tenant evicted for non-payment of rent or damage to property, did the tenant ever issue NSF cheques, was the tenant late with the rental payments, etc. With this information in hand, the landlord is better prepared to decide whether to rent the premises to the prospective tenant.

Rent Check Credit Bureau is NOT a credit bureau in the sense that an individual can obtain a Credit Report and a Credit Score on themselves. This service is provided by both Equifax and TransUnion.

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Educating one Consumer at a time

They are required by law to give you access to everything they have on you. I would say try again and document your experience as in who you spoke with, when and their reply.

I asked them if they could please provide me with a copy of my credit file with them. They seemed quite astonished by that. It was almost comical.

Interesting..thank you for sharing and keep us posted. What exactly did you ask them? The media releases in the site seem dated, if it's any indication..but I would wait to hear back from them I suppose.

According to their website -- http://www.rentcheckcorp.com -- Rent Check Credit is another credit reporting agency except they specialize in tenancies.

Like Equifax and Trans Union, is Rent Check Credit required to provide me with a free copy of my credit history with them?

I ask because they seem completely confused and very defensive about it and all I could get so far is a promise that someone will get back to me.