YieldShield
Screen an applicant

Your Rights and How Screening Works

YieldShield Vantage helps a landlord screen a rental applicant using reports prepared by TransUnion Rental Screening Solutions, Inc. (“TransUnion”) and, if you choose to connect a bank account where the property offers it, a bank income report prepared by Plaid Consumer Reporting Agency, Inc., doing business as Plaid Check (“Plaid Check”). Both are consumer reporting agencies under the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA); YieldShield is the technology platform that connects you to them. This page is a plain-language summary — not a substitute for the official “A Summary of Your Rights Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act,” published by the CFPB. TransUnion provides that summary, along with a copy of your file, when you request your file from them. YieldShield does not send it to you and does not send you a notice about a landlord’s decision.

How screening works

  • A landlord requests a screening and provides the criteria they use to evaluate applicants. For properties in Texas, you will be shown those criteria and asked to acknowledge them before you proceed. The Service is currently offered for Texas properties only.
  • You review what will be collected and give written authorization before any report is obtained. You can decline — if you do, no report is generated and you are not charged.
  • You pay a flat $38 fee, plus sales tax where applicable, and then complete TransUnion’s identity check. The fee is non-refundable once TransUnion has produced your report, whether or not the property owner approves your application. If TransUnion delivers any part of your report (credit, criminal history, or eviction history), your report has been produced, even if another part could not be completed. If TransUnion does not produce your report, for any reason, the full amount you paid, including any tax, is refunded to the payment method you used. Any other refund is at YieldShield’s discretion.
  • TransUnion prepares the reports (credit, criminal, and eviction history, and TransUnion’s ResidentScore) and furnishes them to the landlord, who makes the decision. ResidentScore is TransUnion’s rental-performance score, not a credit score. YieldShield does not calculate it, keep it, evaluate it, or use it, and does not make or recommend decisions.
  • Where the property offers it, you may choose to connect a bank account so that Plaid Check can prepare a bank income report for the property owner. Connecting a bank account is your choice, and the fee is the same whether or not you do.
  • TransUnion’s terms and ours prohibit a landlord from using identity-verification products to deny your application or to condition it, and from sharing those results with you. That is a restriction we place on landlords by contract; it is not a right the FCRA gives you.

Permissible purpose

A landlord may obtain your report only for a permissible purpose — here, evaluating your rental application — and only with your authorization.

Your FCRA rights

  • You must authorize the screening before it happens.
  • You can get a free copy of your report from the CRA if you request it within 60 days of an adverse-action notice.
  • Separately, and whether or not anything adverse happened, you can ask TransUnion Rental Screening Solutions for a copy of your TransUnion report at any time. TransUnion publishes how to request one; the contact details are below. Under the FCRA, consumers are entitled to one free disclosure every 12 months from each nationwide credit bureau and from nationwide specialty consumer reporting agencies, and a company required to provide it free must do so within 15 days. Whether a particular company is one of those is a question for that company, and TransUnion is the right party to ask.
  • You can dispute inaccurate or incomplete information directly with the CRA, which must investigate.
  • You have a right to know what’s in your file at the CRA.
  • You can see any score in your file, and the factors behind it, by requesting your report from the CRA.
  • No agreement can take these rights away. Nothing in YieldShield’s Terms, including any dispute-resolution provision, waives or limits your FCRA rights or remedies.

How adverse action works

If a landlord decides to deny your application, or to approve it only on conditions (such as a co-signer or higher deposit), based even in part on a report, that is an “adverse action” and FCRA § 1681m(a) requires them to notify you.

One notice is required, and the landlord sends it. It must identify the consumer reporting agency by name, address and toll-free telephone number; state that the agency did not make the decision and cannot explain it; and tell you of your right to a free copy of the report from the agency within 60 days and your right to dispute its accuracy with the agency.

What does not apply to a rental decision. There is no pre-adverse notice and no waiting period when the decision is about housing. You may read elsewhere that a landlord must first send a preliminary notice with a copy of the report enclosed and wait before deciding; those requirements come from FCRA § 1681b(b)(3), which applies to employment screening. For a rental decision, the notice described above is the one you are owed, so do not wait for a copy of the report to arrive before asking for it or disputing anything. Request your free copy from TransUnion using the details below, within 60 days of the notice.

Your notice may not include a score. TransUnion’s report may contain a ResidentScore, which is TransUnion’s rental-performance score rather than a credit score. YieldShield does not calculate it, does not keep it, does not evaluate it, and does not use it: no score reaches any decision on YieldShield’s part, because YieldShield makes none. Any score in your file, and the factors behind it, are yours to obtain and to dispute directly with TransUnion, using the details below.

How to dispute or get your report

Because TransUnion prepares TransUnion reports, disputes and copy requests about a TransUnion report are handled with TransUnion, using the contact details on your notice, or:

TransUnion Rental Screening Solutions, Inc. (TURSS)
Attention: Consumer Dispute Team
P.O. Box 800, Woodlyn, PA 19094
Phone: (800) 230-9376
Email: TURSSDispute@transunion.com
Online: https://www.transunion.com/client-support/rental-screening-disputes

If you gave a written instruction for a bank income report, Plaid Check prepared it, and copy requests and disputes about that report are handled with Plaid Check through its Consumer Help Center: https://plaid.com/check/consumer-service-center.

Questions

For questions about the Service (not report-content disputes, which go to the CRA), contact screening-compliance@yieldshield.io.