‘How do I change/switch my client’s credit monitoring service?’, ‘My customer/client wants to change credit monitoring,’, and similar inquiries are very common within our community of Credit Heroes. In this article, we’ll explain everything you need to know about changing report providers for a client.
Table of contents:
To start, make sure you have the following:
Scenario:
Has this happened to you? You import a credit report for a client, and then a month or so later, the client wants to use a different type of free credit report. You try to import, and it's blocked for change? Yes, this will happen, and it's for an important reason. But don't worry, there is a logical explanation/solution.
Is it possible to change report/monitoring providers for clients?
While direct switching of providers is not supported, there are specific ways to handle this scenario, like recreating the client's profile.
When you import a credit report for a client, that's when you choose (and save) the credit report provider. Once you've imported the report for a given client, it's not possible to change report providers for that same client. However, there are alternative methods, such as inactivating or recreating the profile, that allow you to transition to a different provider.
What’s the reason behind this limitation?
Each report provider writes the information a bit differently, so importing from multiple providers for the same client would create a mess of duplicate records. For that reason, changing providers (after you've already imported for a client) is disabled for everyone. In situations requiring a switch, handling this through profile recreation ensures data consistency and avoids complications caused by duplicate records.
Your clients must forward response letters to you
Yes, our software can import twice from the same provider, and it will update the changes. However, it won't give you the important information that is in the response letter from the credit bureau or creditor.
You cannot do credit repair without seeing the responses to the dispute letters. It's critical to ask your client to forward "all correspondence" to you. The client must participate in the process; otherwise, credit repair is not possible.
Alternatives to changing report providers
If you've read all this and you still want to import twice for the same client, here are some solutions:
Import from the same provider you used before. Then changes will update (but remember, you will need the important information in the dispute response letter from the bureau/creditor).
If you just want to update credit items and you have the response letter(s), click here for an alternative way to update credit item changes.
To switch providers, start by marking the client's current profile as "INACTIVE." Update the email address linked to the inactive profile, then create a new profile using the original email address and select the desired provider.
As an alternative, you can delete the current profile entirely and create a new one with the desired provider. Note that historical data will not be preserved in this case.
If you encounter scenarios where a deleted client profile defaults to CHS, update onboarding tasks in your account to redirect to Smart Credit. This ensures all future client redirections follow the updated task configuration.
Steps for handling profile transitions: If switching providers for an existing client becomes necessary, save all critical client data and recreate the client's profile with the desired provider. Change the profile to "lead/inactive" status and ensure data consistency by deleting prior onboarding tasks in the new profile.