When it comes to getting approved for a loan, be careful who you are being social with online. It could affect your loan approval.
“We use social chatter as a way to bring risk down. It’s a wealth of information about a person,” says Garcia, who gives the example of a Facebook user who posts a home address. “If a person says he lives in a different area than the one on the application, it could be a flag. But if it matches, it greatly increases confidence.”
Pretty much everything you and your network reveal may be compiled, including status updates, “tweets,” joining online clubs, linking a Web site or posting a comment on a blog or news Web site.
Then they provide us with some tips on what you should and shouldn’t do.
1. Don’t accept invitations to your social networking site from people until you check their profiles out first.
2. Be acutely aware of what you write. Don’t make public anything you don’t want public.
3. Take an annual inventory of all your social networking sites and delete people and information that can potentially damage you in the eyes of a creditor or employer.
To be clear, creditors aren’t accessing the credit reports or scores of those in your social network, nor do those friends affect your personal credit rating. Jewitt asserts that the graphs aren’t being used to penalize borrowers or to find reasons to reject customers, but quite the opposite: “There is an immediate concern that it’s going to affect the ability to get a financial product. But it makes it more likely” that it will work in their favor,” says Jewitt. CREDITCARDS.COM
