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Email this12:47 pm
March 28, 2013
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If you try to open an account with Accelerate and have bad credit, you will never be able to open an account because they keep that bad credit on their file, so even if 6 years pass and you have good credit , they will never open an account for you, is this legal ?
1:32 pm
October 27, 2013
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As I understand it, no financial institution is legally obliged to accept/maintain a banking relationship with anyone. I know from people working in banks that they, more often that I would have thought, have told customers to take their business elsewhere and have closed accounts after X days having provided notice. These typically are people with bad credit, a number of bad cheques/NSFs, etc.
I think this could be more of an issue with credit unions given their size and closely held shareholders group.
2:14 pm
October 21, 2013
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Credit unions, in particular, are membership institutions. You get an account by becoming a member. Like other clubs etc., you have to be approved ultimately by the board as a member. So they can use whatever criteria they want, I suppose, as long as it doesn't offend overarching human rights legislation. A lifetime ban seems a bit draconian in my opinion. There ought to be an opportunity to "make good", I would have thought, but I am not in charge of their risk assessment.
On the plus side, it's good to know they are being vigilant, I suppose, if one already has money on deposit there, especially considering how many threads here have raised questions about the viability of credit unions.
8:18 am
April 6, 2013
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It might be legal.
In Manitoba, credit reports are regulated by The Personal Investigations Act. Restrictions on what may appear in a personal report are in section 4:
4 No personal report shall contain
(a) any reference to race, religion, ethnic origin, or political affiliation of the subject unless this information is voluntarily supplied by the subject; or
(b) information about any bankruptcy of the subject if the personal report is made more than six years after the date of the discharge in bankruptcy, unless the subject has been bankrupt more than once; or
(c) information regarding any writs, judgments, collections or debts that are statute barred; or
(d) information regarding writs issued against the subject more than 12 months prior to the making of the report if the present status of the action is not ascertained; or
(e) information as to any judgment against the subject unless mention is made of the name and, except in the case of information provided by the designated officer under The Family Maintenance Act, the address of the judgment creditor as given at the date of entry of the judgment and the amount of the judgment; or
(f) any other adverse factual or investigative information that is more than six years old unless it is voluntarily supplied by the subject or is otherwise permitted by this Act; or
(g) any investigative information regarding the subject unless reasonable efforts have been made to corroborate the information.
But, those restrictions seem to apply only to information obtained from others as "personal report" is defined as follows:
"personal report" means any report, whether written or oral, of information obtained from others in the course of making a personal investigation;
In Manitoba, it looks like one can keep adverse information about one's own first-hand dealings with a subject as long as one wishes. As well, a credit report is allowed to have bankruptcy information indefinitely if the subject has filed for bankruptcy more than once.
So, if someone defaults on a loan from Accelerate, a credit reporting agency may not include that on a credit report after six years. But, Accelerate can use that bad first-hand experience internally for as long as they wish.
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