Never heard of "creditchecktotal"

I don't allow tenants to provide me with a copy of their credit report. It is too easy to doctor it.

CreditCheckTotal is a monthly subscription service for checking one's credit. It's not even a credit monitoring service. Ridiculous to pay $30 per month to check your credit when CreditKarma, for instance, will do it for free all day long.

AND you can't legally use *his* subscription to check his, and you can't legally use his *information* to check either, and you can't legally make a decision based on this service.

So, while I generally agree with the above, I will say a few things:

1. Not everyone using that CreditCheckTotal place is an idiot. For $30/month, you get credit SCORES from ALL THREE bureaus. As far as I know, that is the only place for consumers to get their Experian report and score. CreditKarma does not provide real FICO scores for free -- and don't provide ANYTHING for Experian. So, if you are actively monitoring your credit for some reason (such as trying to fix past problems or had an identity theft), then CreditCheckTotal might make a lot of sense. Not MY thing, but I can see some reasonable people using it in certain situations.

2. It's hard to tell attitute from what you posted. If he had a "I'm in charge!" attitude when he said "this is how it works", then I agree with the above: NEXT! But if it was "Oh, I have this service called CreditCheckTotal that monitors my credit because I'm really concerned about my credit score and 'this is how it works'", then that might be very different. In other words, if he was just trying to tell you how his current service works because he thinks it would help you, then that is different than him trying to be in charge. He might just "not get it."

So, personally, I might give him ONE chance here. I'd explain "Sorry, but this is how it works: I can only use a credit report from the service that I use. No exceptions. If you would like to apply and authorize that credit report just like everyone else who applies, then that's great. If not, then I wish you well, but can't process your application. Thank you!"

It really depends on what his attitude was when he said that. Hard to read from this side of the screen. :)

- John...

Oh, one last thing: That is assuming that you need a tenant and he might otherwise be well qualified. I mean, if you've got a list of applicants lined up wanting to move in December -- then by all means just forget this guy and move on. No need for a second chance if you've just lots of people interested. That's just fairly rare in my area at this time of year: no one good moves in December. :)

- John...

It sounds like this person had some kind of credit problems in the past and is trying to rebuild, and is worried that it will be a "hard hit" if PR does the check himself.

I agree with the others. Even if the tenant might be a doctor or an engineer at apple or google with an impeccable credit report, it's so auspicious about how the tenant will act if he or she is in your place. Now is the time to screen really well before getting anyone who turns PITA tenant.