[chokma]

The Schufa (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schufa ) provides data for their partners/customers on your credit rating and credit score.

Banks will usually not give you an account and shops won't give you credit if your rating is bad. For example, you are so late to pay your bills that the creditor has involved collection agencies or the courts to get their money.

Landlords will more often than not demand a document from the Schufa (supplied at your own expense) to consider you eligible for renting a flat or a house.

edit: grammar

[mschuster91]

> Landlords will more often than not demand a document from the Schufa (supplied at your own expense) to consider you eligible for renting a flat or a house.

Not just landlords, employers do Schufa checks too, same for phone/mobile contracts, cable TV, and for what its worth even power/gas companies. The latter is really bad because it locks poor people into the highly expensive "Grundversorgung" tarriff (regulated, the local utility MUST offer it) by the local utility, thus taking away even more of their money.

[tpolzer]

The important distinction is that Schufa is heavily regulated and cannot e.g. give banks disputed information as long as the dispute is not resolved.

[astura]

CRAs in the US are also highly regulated.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Credit_Reporting_Act