Sarah leaned forward. “When was the last time you checked your credit report?”

“I’m sorry, Elias,” his mortgage broker, Sarah, said with a sympathetic wince. “Your application was flagged. There’s a series of late payments on a high-interest retail card in your name. Your score is in the basement.”

By the following spring, Elias sat back in Sarah’s office. She pulled his fresh file and smiled. “Clean as a whistle. That townhouse is yours if you still want it.”

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That night, Elias sat at his laptop. He navigated to the official site, typed in his details with trembling fingers, and downloaded a PDF. It wasn’t a single number, but a thirty-page biography of his financial life—a life he apparently shared with a stranger.