Handling Partial Results
Connect may not discover every liability a user has. Design your product to treat partial results as the normal case.
Why Results May Be Incomplete
Not all liabilities appear on credit reports. Some debts (private loans between individuals, certain employer-provided benefits, some BNPL arrangements) are never reported to credit bureaus and won’t be found by Connect. Reporting delays. New accounts may not appear on a credit report for 30–60 days after opening. A user who just opened a credit card last week won’t see it in Connect results yet. Unmatched institutions. Method’s network covers 15,000+ institutions, but some smaller or newer creditors may not yet be supported. The tradeline exists on the credit report, but Method can’t create an actionable Account from it because the institution isn’t in Method’s network. Closed accounts. The first Connect returns both open and closed accounts. Closed accounts may have limited product availability (e.g., no payments, no updates).Recommended Patterns
Show what was found, supplement where possible
After Connect completes, display the discovered accounts. If you independently have complete raw tradelines from a bureau, you can supplement the discovered set through Manual Connect:Manual Connect requires the full bureau tradeline schema (creditor codes, payment history, delinquency dates, narrative codes, etc.) — it is not a lightweight “user enters a missing account” flow. If you need that pattern, talk to your CSM about the right approach for your use case.
Enable Connect subscriptions for ongoing discovery
New liabilities that appear on future credit reports will be automatically discovered. See Connect Subscriptions.Handle zero results gracefully
If Connect returns zero accounts because the user has a thin credit file, explain that the credit report did not contain tradelines. Do not offer Manual Connect unless you independently have complete raw bureau tradelines to submit. Enable a Connect subscription when you need to discover liabilities that appear on a later credit report.Account-level product gaps
Even when an account is discovered, it may not support all products. Always check theproducts array before making assumptions: