WTF? And the apartment is really beautiful. I don’t want to miss the opportunity but I don’t want to put myself at risk. I wrote him back enumerating ways to share the screening report without giving the SSN. I’m waiting for his answer. I’m looking for first-hand experiences. Did your landlord accept to use shared reports or just insisted in getting the SSN without even giving a mean of communicating it securely? The application has a logo of the Rental Housing Association of Puget Sound. Update: I have to clarify that this landlord doesn’t use an online system that would let me put the SSN on some secure field, but just paper. And he asked me to scan and send the form. So, the point is that I smell ignorance of basic information security, that will cause my SSN to end in a piece of paper in a paper bin. Update 2: in any case, ideally I don’t want a landlord to have my SSN. SmartMove from TransUnion achieves what I’m looking for.
Isn’t jus the employment verification letter good enough to say you are in good standing that Amazon has you on payroll?
I take copy if all SSN .... Green card .... Passport... Etc have 120 apartment in Texas. Everyone is fine with it... Only renting to PIO and OCI ppl
Wouldn't rent to anyone who refuses a credit/background check. The liability is far too high. Sorry. This is normal.
OP is not refusing a credit check. You don’t need SSN to do a credit check
The service I use requires one. Which do you use?
Had to provide Id+ssn + pay stubs + bank statements for condo rental when applied. Apartment buildings asked for driver ID and let you put Ssn in their system automatically (but do not remember it) They need to pull your credit score - with us we actually ended up with 50% less in deposits as all numbers were very good
It sucks bit this is one situation you must provide it.
An SSN is not necessary for a credit check. Just show him your DL and ask him to do a credit check with that info. These service providers want you to think that your SSN is required because it give them access to your SSN and they can use this access to misuse it if they so choose. The problem is there are a lot of weak people out there letting desperation get the better of them and giving up info they shouldn’t give out
Technically true; but as a landlord, I'm just going to reject anyone raising these difficulties. I don't want you as a tenant doing the same kinds of things.
If you reject people over non-provision of SSN you could get into a legal soup
There are lot of rental screening options that doesn't involve you exposing your ssn to the land lord.
It's pretty standard for SSN to be required for credit check. It might not be required for background check but if you don't have a unique name, it's normal for some criminal record to be revealed on people with the same name and it becomes hard to disambiguate without SSN. I would be glad to rent with good income verification without SSN in a reasonable state like AZ where I can actually do evictions in 2 weeks. In CA I would not risk renting to a squatter and end up having 4 months of no rent payment.
Again, there are services that have an interface for the tenant to enter the SSN, with the background check being sent to the landlord.
It is very normal. Get over it.
That is normal. You need the ssn to do a full credit check.
No, you don’t need it. It’s sufficient but not necessary. I can request the report to an agency online, and they can share the report directly with the landlord. Look that up on the web.