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What To Check And How To Check A Credit Report |
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All information relating to checking your
credit report normally can be classified under one of four categories: Personal, Reported Accounts, Public Record, and Inquiries. 1) Personal information: Your credit report includes your name, address, marital status, name change, spouse's employment, your employment, position within company, salary, as well as former employers. 2) Reported accounts: Your credit report has two categories of reported accounts, which are monthly accounts and default accounts. 3) Public information: Legal public information comprises of lawsuits, bankruptcies, liens, and court judgments, whereas financial public records include charge accounts, loans, and debts. 4) Inquiries: The important inquiry areas while checking credit report are potential creditors, employers, landlords, as well as any others who have requested a copy of your report within the last 12 months. These inquiries often remain for 2 years. Making too many inquiries can give a wrong signal to the potential creditor that you are desperate. Unsolicited credit offers, though readily identifiable, also fall in this category and affect your loan procurement. What to look for while checking credit report? In short, you have to look for everything while checking credit report. You must go through your credit report with a fine tooth comb, entry by entry with the credit agency legend by your side to verify coding compliance. Note down anything that may appear to be fishy while checking credit report. Given below are six areas which have posed problems for others. Check them out. --Ensure that all your personal information is correct while checking the credit report. There may be simple errors such as: first name misspelled, missing Jr./Sr., erroneous address, bad zip code, wrong employer, or any other incorrect personal data. Any of these errors could mix up your account with someone else's account to your detriment. --Ensure that marital information is correct while you check credit report. Are accounts listed as joint really joint? Is the report in compliance with court settlements? --Ensure that outdated information does not appear in your credit report. Any item older than 7 years except for bankruptcy, which is usually 10 is considered outdated. --Ensure that closed accounts are not listed as open. Accounts you closed should reflect, Closed by consumer, otherwise it can be assumed that the creditor, which does not augur well for your credit, closed it. --Ensure that accounts should not appear twice even in different sections and the following should not reflect in your credit report: incorrect histories such as late payments, a credit entry you do not recognize and a pre-marital debt of your current spouse. --Ensure that your credit report doesn't have missing reports that would be beneficial to show a good history. You should also check that profiles, credit limits, and balances are correct. If there was a former correction to your credit file, which has since disappeared, it should be brought to the agency's attention. What to do if there are errors in your credit report? The Fair Credit Reporting Act offers a great deal of consumer protection. When you notify the credit bureau of any errors, send your letter certified mail-return receipt so that you have proof they received it. Mostly you can make up to three disputes per letter and allow 30 days for a response. If there is no response, send a second letter. If there is still no response, send a third with a copy to the FTC. If errors persist, you can contact the creditor directly for corrections. Send a brief statement to the credit bureau stating the facts. It is your right to have a 100-word statement as part of your file. If nothing happens, there are two extreme options: the first is a lawsuit based on a creditor's credit agency's violation of The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), the second is applying for a new SSN to obtain new credit This is the final step and should be based on significant documentation supplied to Social Security Administration. |
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