Hello Proformative Community, My client has been a successful, self-funded, multi-million dollar engineering consultancy for the past 25 years. They been profitable and never needed to taken on debt, or other credit. And, 95% of their revenue has been from foreign engagements/clients. Recently, they have an opportunity to participate in a capital project JV and are putting together the bank/project financing for that. However, they need to provide a D&B report. D&B is giving them a low credit score, despite the fact of the large non-US revenue and are ignoring the fact they've never needed credit. How can they get an appropriate credit rating from D&B? D&B is being unresponsive/un-cooperative to say the least in addressing this situation. Thanks,
Inaccurate D&B rating
Answers
Best of luck! Check out this thread several people on Proformative weighed in on regarding D&B. Be prepared to pay a lot of money to get anything corrected.
https://www.proformative.com/questions/dun-bradstreet-credibility-corp-reviews-complaints
If you want a great D&B score - pay them lots of money (for services you don't need) and all of a sudden your problems will go away.
D&B, is as crooked as a $3 bill.
Why the FTC won't do anything about them is beyond comprehension.
I don't disagree with my friends. But the reality is that D&B is the most widely used game in town. I recommend the following - obtain a copy of the D&B report; identify any errors on the report; have your general counsel write a brief note, and attach back-ups to refute the errors; and if you have audited financials, include them. Send the letter FedEx or Certified and retain the receipt. Then don’t worry about it.
When you are required to provide the D&B report to the bank or your potential partners, include the letter you sent to D&B. In response, D&B will respond to you with a “Credit Watch” plan. Just disregard it.
But there is something you said in your description that makes me pause. It is not uncommon for a credit rating agency to provide a low score, if you have never taken on debt. Remember, they are trying to let others know your history of paying your debts, which they cannot do if you do not have any debt.
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Hi Regis,
Thanks.
I cut n pasted your guidance to our
Would this approach work with Experian and others, if we ever had a problem with them?
I have had many of the same issues you are facing. In fact we just terminated our long term relationship with D&B. The fact is they are the most used service, but they don't really provide information you can't get elsewhere.
Experian is another player in the game. The biggest weakness of any of the credit reporting firms is that they can only report that which has happened. Too many confuse this with a prediction of what will happen.
I have decided to move away from D&B because they are more than x10 the cost of others, and don't add value. Without data to tell you where their scores came from, the scores are useless. D&B scores foreigns and subs horribly with little explanation as to why.
Remember, D&B and the plethora of others are strongly scored on trades and not financials. Many vendors are beyond terms for good reasons. DBT is the holy grail of credit reporting services, and once you are in the trenches, you will find that DBT is important, but you have understand why for it to mean anything.