How to Find a Credit Report Without an Address

Regardless of whether you are a landlord, employer or small business owner planning to extend credit to customers, it is in your best interest to pull and review a client's credit report before agreeing to work with him. An individual's credit report contains a thorough record of his debts and payment history on those debts. Evaluating an individual's debt management skills will inform you early on if the person you are dealing with can be depended on to make timely payments or properly handle company funds. If you do not have the client's address, you can still access his credit report using other identifying information.

Instructions

1

Ensure that you can legally access the individual's credit report. The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) states that any person or business wishing to review a credit record must have a permissible purpose for doing so. Employers, creditors, insurers and law enforcement officials all have a permissible purpose to review consumer credit reports. If you are not sure whether or not you can legally pull the individual's report, having her sign a form granting you permission makes it a permissible purpose pull under the FCRA.

2

Your may attempt to pull the credit report using only the information available to you. In most cases, this is a name and Social Security number. Although an individual may share a name with other consumers, his Social Security number is unique and likely to return the correct credit file.

3

Ask the individual if she has changed her name. When a person changes her first name, last name or both, the old name may appear in her credit file as an "alias" or it may not appear at all. In some cases, the majority of her credit information may have been accrued under her old name. This can make it difficult to pull her credit report using her new name. Try pulling the credit report using both the old and new name.