May. 2008

                                                           http://www.china-investigation.com

By the year 2008, Steele has entered its 15th anniversary. There is going to be some celebrations this May for the anniversary. Thank all the colleagues of Steele for all the effort and contributions for the company.

During the fixed inner training of Steele, with cases and games of living and interesting, every colleague has gained a lot. Not only has the understanding of risk controlling improved, but also the relationship between each other has come closer.

As Region Chief of CII in China , Hai Yang, President of Steele, has been in charge of the audit of the new member¡¯s quality in this region all along.

A fresh area on the website of Steele www.sbcs.com.cn has been added¡ªOutside the Eight Hours. It is a photograph slideshow capturing the culture of Steele. We would love to shall with all the friends interested in photograph. 

Decision Draft of NPC Standing Committee on Amendment of Civil Procedural Law was passed by the highest legislature of China and carried out on April 1, 2008, which was the first amendment on Civil Procedural Law in 16 years. A series of treatment would shoot right on issues of appeal and execution.

Series of activities including Annual Survey for Beijing Law firms, registration and reassignment of lawyers, application of intern lawyers, registration for new law firms and registration for new licensed lawyers was formerly in action on April 7, 2008.

Beijing Bar Association and Ping An of Beijing resumed the Liability Insurance Agreement of Lawyer in Practice at Ping An Hotel on April 7, 2008.

China Insurance Regulatory Commission held its Routing News Release Conference of the First Season 2008 at Rm. 308 of the commission on April 23, 2008.

Some Rules on Taiwan Involved Civil Litigation Document Delivering was passed on the 1421st meeting of the Judicial Committee of the Supreme People¡¯s Court and formerly put in practice to public on April 23, 2008.

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General Knowledge on American Credit System for Going Aboard

Because the consumption custom is different between East and West, students from China will easily get derogatory credit record unaware. Under the strict credit recording and auditing regulations, once the customer gets derogatory record, he/she will get problems and feel embarrassed everywhere. So do tie up the connection with banks and credit structures, pay attention to your own credit status and avoid derogatory record, which means a lot to every Chinese student while study and living in America.

In America , credit is actually commercial goods. As every credit structure and commercial collector all around America aimed on profits, they provided the whole society paid service and complied completely with marketing operation. Since the middle term of 19^th century, American has started monthly payment for commodities such as piano and sewing machine. And since 1910, the American has started monthly payment for cars, which promoted the development of consumption credit. Now, consumer credit has become the basic consumption style in American¡¯s daily life. The phenomenon of none-saving in the bank of the citizens for several years shows that the consumption needs become the motor force promoting the economic development of America .

SSN (Social Security Number)

In America , every citizen owns a SSN, which is the connection of a whole life¡¯s basic information and credit record of the citizen. Since Social Security Administration of America founded in 1930, the federal government has commanded every legal citizen and resident to hold a SSN, which is under the administration of the Social Security Administration and exclusive to every citizen. In nowadays with the network, as long as a SSN is put in to the computer system, the basic information and credit record will come out clearly.

The SSN is similar to the Identity Card Number in China , which is unique and unchangeable for a life time. So lots of universities considered it an application number or study number for the student. For any Chinese student studying aboard, the first thing he/she needs is applying for a SSN as soon as possible. Without the SSN, a lot of inconvenient will come up to you in the daily life.

 Credit Card

There are four kinds of credit cards in America , VISA, Master, American Express and Discover, in which, VISA and Master are the most common ones.

For a Chinese student who is newly in America , he/she did not own any credit records, so it will be really hard for them to apply for a credit card. Except the credit record, the credit card company also needs to check the SSN, residential address of the student in America , annual income and phone number etc. In this situation, the easiest way to get your own credit record is to buy a ¡°quasi credit card¡±, the consumption up limit is the pre-saving of the holder. Consuming and paying with this pre-saving money and the credit records can be cumulated. With the frequent consuming and good credit records, one can get a formal credit card in half a year and the money used to ¡°buy¡± the quasi credit card will be fully paid back. As long as the customer is trustful in consumption, the viable overdraft amount in the credit card will be escalated. You can even buy furniture, car, house and etc products with the credit card.

While apply for a credit card, be aware of the permanent address you are filling, which is the main reason the bank refuses to extend the credit card to a student. If the student is getting scholarships from the school, the student can consider the scholarship certificate the income proof, which improves the success rate of credit card application. As my own experience, it is very hard to get credit card from Citbank or similar famous banks when you are newly arriving in America . Commonly, you can first apply at American Express which offers a Blue Card for foreign student, or quasi credit card at other banks. When accumulating a great amount of credit trust, not only you can apply credit card of big banks, but also those banks will come up to you.

Normally, a VISA card and a Master card are enough for a foreign student. You can get a good credit record in a short time and not cause any carrying or keeping masses of bunches of credit cards.  

Credit Bureau

Credit Bureau is the institute for evaluation of personal credit, and it is also called consuming credit report institute, which supplies professional personal credit services. The basic service of the credit bureau is collecting the personal credit records, legally submitting personal credit investigation report and diffusing the credit report of the law permitted credit card users with payment.

There are three main state credit bureaus in America , Experian [1], Equifax [2] and Trans Union [3]. These three credit bureaus do investigations on the credit status of the customers all around America and a huge database will be circulated throughout all the legal clients of America with payment. The three credit bureaus are holding credit records of nearly 200 million customers and becoming the significant back stones of America Credit System.

Chinese students in America always pay more attention to the application of credit card rather than checks of credit records. Some of them are even not aware of the existence of credit bureau. Actually, banks and other financial institute can ask credit bureau for customer¡¯s credit record at any time, so checking the credit status of your own and keeping fine credit records are extremely important. My suggestion here is after the application of credit card and construction of credit records, except on time payment, you should also check your own credit records at any moment to avoid any unnecessary problems.

 Content of the Credit Report

Most of the credit reports are provided by the above three credit institutes Experan, Equifax and Trans Union, recording and analyzing the personal loan habits of the customer. A completed credit report contains following four sectors.

1. Personal information: including name, SSN, DOB, family present address and former address, work experience and information of the employer.

2. Credit record: including credit card, house credit, installment credit, account, status, open date of the account, balance, line of credit, minimum payment, latest update, payment records and the credit actions records in the latest 30 days or more.

3. Inquiry request: including hard Inquiry and Soft Inquiry. Hard Inquiry refers to the inquiry of the bank or credit company authorized by the customer, which has some derogatory influence to credit scores. And the other inquiry is called Soft Inquiry, such as self requirement of credit report, inquiry from credit companies for sales promotion, which will do no harm to credit scores.

4. Public Record: including kinds of court judgment related to the customer such as personal bankruptcy, mortgage, frozen assets, divorce support right agreement and tax lien.

Privacy Protection

To guarantee the qualified credit information services and the protection of personal privacy of the customer, there are strict divisions and boundaries on the information of the credit report in America . There are mainly two categories.

Permitted public information in the credit report:

1. Identity information: including name, address, phone number and SSN etc.

2. Loan and credit records: name of the credit grantor, account number, line of credit, date opening the account, report date of the information from the grantor to the credit institute, the last date of the payment and amount. Some of the information even includes overdue account information, overdue unpaid amount and the payment record in the past 12-60 months to the items.

3. Public derogatory information records: including bankruptcy, tax credit, criminal record, collection record and etc. The valid time for this information is normally 7 years.

4. Inquiry record: including all the inquiry records for credit in the past one year.

Information which without personal permission of the customer, forbidden to publish:

1. Current or saving accounts of the customer

2. Insurance bought by the customer

3. Income information of the customer

4. Personal life style and consumption habit of the customer

5. Job performance of the customer

6. Medical information of the customer

7. Driving records of the customer

8. Ethnic, religion and political tendency    

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A Still Jumper

Once a scientists had an experiment: they put a flea on the table. As long as you hit the table, the flea would jump up and the height was 100 times taller than the length of its body. So the flea was the champion who jumps the highest in the world. Then the scientists put a cover glass over the flea and force the flea to jump, and this time the flea hit the glass. After several times of attempting, the flea changed its jumping height to adapt the environment which was lower than the cover glass. The scientists changed the height of the cover glass lower and lower from time to time, and the flea lowered its jumping height every time it hit the cover glass. And finally, when the cover glass reached almost to the flat of the table, the flea could not jump any more. Even after the scientist took away the cover glass and hit the table, the flea stayed in silence and do not jump any more.

The flea has had a sub consciousness of a cover glass over its head and the cover glass covered its heart. It was not that the flea was disabled of jumping. It was just after times of fails, it learnt alert, got used to the change and numbed. The saddest thing was that even the cover glass was no longer over its head, it had no courage to jump for another time.

There are many people just like the flea, who had suffered a lot when growing up, so many critics, strikes and difficulties from the outside (including the family), started to fear the difficulties but got used to all the failures. Eventually, they lost the confidence and courage and became cower, jelly, shortsighted, unconfident, unsociable and afraid of responsibility and struggles.

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