Dunn & Bradstreet

Debookkeeper

Do any of you monitor your Dunn & Bradstreet rating? I am just curious, I never had any dealings with them before with anyone I worked for. A week ago, my GC got a notice in the mail stating that his rating had changed, and there were 6 recent inquiries. He hadn't applied for credit, so he was curious as to who was checking him out. It gave instructions on how to log on and they will send you the info by e-mail. Nothing. We get a phone call from Dunn & Bradsteet rep, and he tells us he cannot see our report to find out who the inquiries were from, and what caused the change in the score - but for 349.00 you get full access to your report for a year with additional monitoring alerts. Curiosity got the better of him, and he signed up. He wanted to know who was checking him out, and why the score dropped. IT's A CROCK OF SH!T. They will NOT tell you in the report who the inquiries are from, and it also does NOT list the creditors who are reporting. - Needless to say we are going to dispute the membership - it was VERY misleading. So what I learned about Dunn & Bradstreet, is it can be a necessary tool for when you are a new business getting started and need to be credit worthy, it is not something to worry about (slight changes in scores) when you are well established.

Double-A

Its not worth worrying about even then, Deb.

I've dealt with them off and on since 1986, and I can say I've never been impressed. They are worse than the local Better Business Bureau. They are only interested in generating income and have no real service to offer to the likes of most small businesses.

The tactics your contractor was attacked with are typical of a bait and switch ploy. Any company that uses those types of sales tools should never be taken seriously.

I hope he paid with a credit card. He can dispute the charges forever. Let them rot in a cell of their own making for a while.

__________________
"My clients’ wishes are the center of my attention." -- David Guido, a contractor in Woodstock, N.Y.
New York Times, July 20, 2006

copusbuilder

I agree...We received a call from one of their reps. He stated that we had had three inquiries and our crecit rating wasn't determined??

It seems for $350 we could get a report on who (if anyone) was checking us out.... We told them to $@3 off...politely of course

__________________
www.copusconstruction.com
www.etexasrentals.com
www.thelakevoice.com
AkA Richard Cranium

mdshunk

I know that when you're bidding on bigger work they "pull" your D&B, much like your personal credit report gets pulled for buying a car or home. I don't know what it shows, but it's never been an issue for me. I got a contract to do service work for a national retail maintenance company. They sent me their D&B printout, and I didn't even ask for it. Matter of fact, I didn't even read it. I didn't really think that they would have gone to the effort to send me information that would make them look bad. Truthfully, I'm not even sure why they thought I would need it, aside from the fact that they told me up front that it takes 90 days to get paid. Whatever, as long as I know that up front.

Debookkeeper

What I didn't realize about Dunn & Bradstreet, is that every business that is legally filed with the secretary of the state automatically then gets a Dunn & Bradstreet file. I guess banks giving lines of credit use them to check your score, and from what I questioned him about - it is a tool that businesses, and individuals would use to check a company out before buying into it, or stock, etc. So in conclusion, I am assuming it is a tool for the highrollers. yes - it was done by credit card, and if the rep won't cancel it, we will dispute it.

eastend

another ploy of D&B is to contact you and tell you they need to update your file. For this, they want $300, Amazing!
Pretty much a scam all the way.

Ken@K&R

D&B has a section called eupdate. It's not easy to get to on their website because it's the only thing offered for free. When you sign up for it you can go in and see whats being done with your credit. It will not show who is reporting but will show the amounts of credit you have with the creditors, how many credit lines, if you been a good or bad payer, how long you have been past due, and other such things. If you get 5 people reporting to them within a year you will have a paydex score the higher the better. Alot of people look very carefully at this like MD said above. It can make or break an app for credit with a supplier or bank. If your a partnership or propritorship this score can also be a deciding factor on if you get credit without pulling personal credit reports. With 5 companys reporting, a paydex of 80 or better, and good payment history you should not need to back a loan with personal credit.

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Ken

mdshunk

That's good information, right there.

I guess I accidentally did good then, because I have open accounts all over town. I hate having to drive all over Kingdom Come to get a little something or other.

Say, if you have a link to that hard to get to spot on their site, that would be super.

Debookkeeper

What you just described sounds like exactly what he got to see for 350.00! I also asked about how you go about adding more creditors so your paydex score goes higher, and they want , I think it was almost 500.00 to add 5 more creditors. That is insane!

Dustball

Here you go-

https://eupdate.dnb.com/default.asp

Mike Finley

I'm going to give this a try and see what I can find. I've been trying to establish corporate credit and have had a hell of a time seeing any way to actually view what we have.

Debookkeeper

Mike - keep us posted and let us know if you found the information very helpful

Tscarborough

We used to pull D&B, but found using trade references and standard CR was a much better indicator.

RobertWilber

I just hopped on d&b
got a password pronto by email
looks useless ...
make that valueless

Ken@K&R

Believe it or not we have one of the highest D&B ratings you can get as a small business after only 1 year. What we did was only open credit at places that reported to D&B for the first little bit and made 1 purchase to each place. I used Nebs, quill, staples, and amazon first and bought stupid $20 paper or pens or something. That gave us 2 reporting $500 limits with perfect payments. The Staples and amazon gave us $1000 each and some small purchase got us another perfect payment history. I then hit Dell and got $5,000 because of 5 perfect credit reports on D&B. That left us 5 accounts reporting all perfect credit. Dont have to keep spending soon as first is reported as good unless you mess up payment it stays good even if you dont make another purchase. Then I hit citi business cards. They are known for giving credit rather freely to a business. We got one with a real nice limit which reported to D&B as our highest credit account.

Here is a small list of the easiest to get credit accounts so you can build credit for a business. In order of easy to harder to get but all fairly easy.
NEBS (office supplys)
Quill (office supplys)
Staples
Amazon (business accounts)
Dell
Citi bank business cards
Ford Motor company

Also if the paydex score hits say 80 which is conserdered very good it will fall badly with 1 late payment and take about 6 months of on time payments to get it back up. So don't miss any. You also need to open all 5 accounts within the same few days. Then they all report straight from the begining otherwise if 2 are open they report but if other 3 are open say 2 weeks later they wont be added for like 6 months when they auto update or you can pay $500 to get them added. I vote for the free method of building the business credit. Best if you open all 3 and spend the total of say $5 to get some paper and pens from each. We are a partnership but no longer need to use personal gaurentees to get credit which seems tough to do but not impossiable.

This method is well known and gives perfect business credit with 1 year if done correctly.

__________________
Ken

Ken@K&R

Forgot I hate to outright lie but it also is a good thing to have 5 or more employees listed with D&B or you can only get so high of a paydex score. Not like they check it out though.

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Ken

dougchips

Dun & Bradstreet
Name
Tucson, AZ
Ph: 800.627.3867 Ext. ***
Direct: 520.512.4607
Fax: 866.886.1527

If you want to talk to someone who is very rude, call this girl! I applied for a free D&B number last week and had to call her to "verify some info". Her only goal was to sell me on a $300? package. "You can get a social security number for free, we are in business and sell the numbers, if you want a free one, we will list you as high risk credit". Does this mean that if I pay the $300, I will have better credit?

Mike Finley

HA! I know her, I went through the same ordeal. Don't have a DUNS number yet that I know of and she was trying to get $800 out of me

dougchips

Call her and she how long it takes before she will give you the free one. She should try collections and give up on the sales job.

Debookkeeper

If you are registered with your secretary of state as a business, you do have a Dunns number.