Tag Archives: TransUnion

How Petro-Canada Patrons Can Check the Credit Score for Free if They Use an RBC Credit Card

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Recently, in late 2017, Petro-Canada came out with an offer to reduce the price of gasoline and to award extra Petro-Points is you buy their gasoline using a credit card issued by RBC. We signed up our RBC card for this promotion and that included setting up the RBC card for online access. While snooping around the RBC credit card website, I discovered we can check our credit score for free.

What’s a Credit Score and Why Did I Check Ours?

There are two major credit monitoring agencies in Canada: Equifax Canada and TransUnion Canada. They both collect financial information on you which they use to create a ranking called a credit score. Financial institutions may use some generic or customized form of this credit score as part of their decision on whether to offer you loans or credit and at what interest rate.

We don’t actually need to borrow any money as our mortgage is paid off and we don’t do renovations until we’ve saved the money to pay for them. Our emergency fund can tide us over when the unexpected happens like getting a car totaled on the 401 or having the roof leak a few years before we planned to replace it.

Nevertheless, like many people, I’m very curious. I wanted to know what our credit score was but I did not want to pay to see it. (You can check your credit record free once per year by asking the bureaus to mail you the info. That won’t include your actual credit score, though, just the facts on which it is based.) So I clicked on the RBC link.

Checking Your TransUnion Credit Score for Free for RBC Credit Card holders

You’ll need to have online access to your RBC credit card. NOTE: You don’t need to have a bank account with RBC to set up your credit card online. At this time, we don’t have an RBC bank account.

  1. Sign on to your RBC account.
  2. Midway down the right side of the screen is the My Services section.
  3. Look for and click on the link: View Your Credit Score
  4. Read through the terms and conditions. If you can live with them, click on the link to accept the terms.
  5. Wait for the CreditView Dashboard to appear.
  6. Your TransUnion Credit Score will be displayed.

That’s it! You now know one version of your credit score.

Ours is not 900 but it’s high enough that we find it acceptable.

Playing with the RBC CreditView Dashboard Score Simulator

Further down the same page is a group of text boxes under the heading Score Simulator.

For some weird reason, it is encouraging you to see what the impact is of various actions on your credit score. For example, you can check what might happen to your score if you added 2 Credit Cards with limits of $2500, Raise the Credit Limit of one card by $10000 and Added a Personal Loan for $30 000.

  1. Type your scenario in the applicable text boxes.
  2. Click on the Simulate button.

Interestingly enough, it made almost no difference to our credit score. Your mileage may vary!

I’ve probably agreed to receiving all sorts of targeting marking from RBC by using this free credit score check, but it was still a fun exercise. I can’t say that it will change my money management plans much though.

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Have you ever checked your Credit Score? Were you pleased with the result? Please share your views with a comment.

Beware the New Account Inactivity Fee for BMO MasterCard !

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For several years, BMO MasterCard has had a fee for people who don’t use their card much. Specifically, if you had a credit balance on your card (perhaps because you over-paid a bill or received a refund for an item back to your card account) and if you didn’t use the card for 12 months, they would charge you $10 and take it out of your positive card balance. This year, however, they have started charging a fee to everyone!

Who Will Get Charged the BMO MasterCard $10 Inactive Card Fee?

If you don’t use your MasterCard one month, the clock will start ticking. If, eleven months later, you still have not used the card, they will bill your card $10.

What Can I Do To Keep My BMO MasterCard Active?

To avoid the fee, you need to

  • buy something that bills your credit card
  • receive a refund on your credit card account
  • pay interest on a balance on your credit card, or
  • pay other fees on your account, perhaps a fee for a cash advance, for example

at least once every 12 months.

How Can I Remember to Keep My BMO MasterCard Active?

You may want to set it up so that an annual or semi-annual bill is charged to your credit card account.

Of course, you’ll need to make sure you remember and pay the credit card bill or you could end up with a huge amount of interest due!

Why Would Anyone Keep a BMO MasterCard If They Are Not Using It?

Many people keep a credit card as a “backup” card in case their usual card is unavailable. This secondary card may seldom get used.

Other people don’t buy much on credit and may simply forget to use it for a year.

Some people also keep an older credit card “open” to maintain the information about the card on their credit history with Equifax and TransUnion.

Are There Any Other New Fees or New Fee Explanations (for 2016) for a BMO MasterCard?

Other fees that they are emphasizing include Cash Advance Fees and Dishonoured Payment Fees.

If you get a cash advance from your BMO MasterCard using

  • BMO Telephone Banking (whether self-serve or through an associate answering your call) or
  • through BMO Online, or
  • through BMO Mobile, or
  • through BMO Tablet Banking

You will be charged a fee of $3.50 in addition to any interest charges on the advance and any other fees, including currency conversion rates.

I thought they had stopped issuing MasterCard cheques but apparently not because there is also a fee if you bounce one.

If you write a MasterCard cheque that exceeds the amount of credit available on your account, it will bounce. (They will refuse to cash it.) If you do that, they will also charge you a fee of $40-$48.

So watch out that you don’t write a cheque at the same time as your pre-authorized bill payment appears on your credit card balance or you could get a nasty fee surprise.

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Does your bank charge you if you forget to use your credit card? Please share your views with a comment.