Hector Milla asked:




With today’s economic stresses and circumstances, you may find yourself in need of checking your credit report. Maybe you want to get a loan, or were denied a loan based on it. Maybe you have been in the process of debt consolidation or debt settlement for a while now and you want to see the effect it has had on your report. There are several agencies that will give you one for free.

Credit reports are records of your credit activities. It lists your credit card accounts and/or loans and the balance you may have on them. They tell how regularly you make your payments. They also show action taken against you because of unpaid bills or defaulted loans.

If you are wondering exactly what you report says about you, you can get a copy once every 12 months for free from each of the three nationwide consumer reporting companies. You can contact the companies directly to obtain it.

You will have to give them certain information such as your name, social security numbers etc. The report you get will have your identifying information on it (name, address, social security number, birthday, current employers), credit information (accounts with banks, credit card issuers, utility companies etc.), information about each account (when you opened it, payment record, co-signers), public information records (bankruptcy history, tax liens, judgments), and recent inquires (the names of those who have gotten copies of your report within the past year).

Your free credit report will be drawn from your credit history. A good rating helps you obtain your financial goals; poor ratings limit your financial opportunities. Now, the thing is many free reports do not list your actually numerical FICO score. This is very good to know when you are conducting any kind of financial business that involves credit.

You also really need to check your credit more than once a year. There are now services that for a small monthly fee will keep watch on your credit report and alert you to ANY activity on them. Things like inquires, late payments notices etc. These companies will also make your FICO numerical score available to you. You can keep a close eye on your report, even checking weekly if you so wish and remember they tell you of any activity on the report.

These are great services to help make you financially independent. They are great if you are in debt settlement, negotiation or consolidation also.

Keith

Jared Wright asked:




Credit report companies offer their services to people who need to get their credit score and other information about their financial status. A credit report is required when you apply for a loan such as a home mortgage, and may also be required when you want to apply for a credit card. There are credit reports for individuals, and there are also some reports which are made to evaluate the statuses of companies.

Credit report companies are also known as credit bureaus. There are three major credit report companies, which are the Equifax Credit Bureau, the TransUnion Credit Bureau, and the Experian Credit Bureau. These companies collect different information from creditors, which are then used to generate reports that are sold to their clients.

A credit report is a valuable document in the sense that it includes information which may grant or deny loan approval, employment, licensing, insurance and other business needs. Individuals and businesses alike are dependent on their credit scores and report to help in evaluating their current financial standing.

Some information which is available from credit companies includes the following:

• Identification. Credit report companies have consumer details such as name, employer, address, name of spouse and the company or employer of the spouse.

• Credit history. This includes accounts which are active, including the account numbers, the date when the accounts where opened, the payments and other activities made for it, balances, amounts that were paid in the past, and how often payment was late. These are all bases for a low credit score, meriting a lender ground for denying you of a loan.

• Derogatory items. These include risks which may affect the lender or the company which will deal with the other party. Judgments, suits, bankruptcies and tax liens may prevent you from getting approved for a loan.

• Inquiries. Companies or individuals may have asked for your information, such as banks and financial institutions which have required your bank details. You will be given information about the inquiries which happened in the last 18 months only.

Credit report companies update your information regularly so that their database is updated and is relevant. Lenders can access your information to help them decide whether or not you can be trusted with a loan or a new credit card. You can also access your own credit score by logging in to the website of the three credit bureaus mentioned above so you can monitor your finances as closely as you need.

Curtis

Pat asked:


i recently disputed negative items on my experian report and now they have been deleted.im waiting for my report to update. does my info and score change on all three credit bureau reports or just the one i payed for? experian.

Glenda

Conleth Onu asked:




Is bad credit ruining your life? Have you been denied credit because of negative information on your credit report? Do you want to learn how to make a good credit report instantly? If you answered yes to the above questions, you’re in the right place.

Having a bad credit record will make your life difficult in many situations. Nothing can slow you down faster financially than negative information contained in a credit bureau file. Sometimes, the information is true, other times it is deceiving or even totally wrong. What can you do if you believe that you have been turned down for credit because of inaccurate or outdated information?

There are some steps that you can take, to get rid of blemishes on your report. Your first step should be to get your credit reports from the three major credit bureaus. You can get a free copy of your report one time a year, and you can also obtain one at no charge if you have been denied credit within the past 60 days.

Once you have obtained your report, examine it carefully. Make sure that all information is being reported correctly. If you find any incorrect information in your report, you can dispute it with the credit bureau.

Send a letter to the credit bureau explaining your dispute. When filing a dispute, tell the credit bureau what information you believe is incorrect and the reason why. Include any documentation that would help support your claim.

By law the credit bureaus are required to delete negative items from credit reports whenever a particular item reaches a certain age. Also, inaccuarate or unverifiable information must be deleted from credit files.

If there are accounts on your report that need to be settled, you can negotiate with the creditors. Be sure to have the creditor sign and date the settlement proposal and return it to you, before you pay them.

Once you have finished eliminating negatives from credit report, and have a clean clear credit report, it’s time to add positive information on your report.

A secured credit card can help you build good credit. It looks and works like any other major credit card. Secured Visa and Mastercard are issued against your depositing cash in a financial institution. That deposit serves as a collateral for the credit card. If you maintain a good account, your excellent credit rating will be recorded on your report.

Another effective way to add positive credit information to your credit file is to take out a small installment loan from a bank and pay it back promptly.

You can also build good credit by getting Department Store and Gas Company credit cards. By having your very own major credit card, you can qualify for instant credit at many department stores and gas stations.

Once you have established a good credit rating, you will be eligible for loans, credit cards, and other items of credit.

Rodney

Tim Gorman asked:




Many people who look into their reports find that their credit information has errors and those errors usually affect your credit negatively.

Maintaining an accurate score sometimes requires us to be pro-active, and we must write letters to remove information off our credit report. These are sent to the big 3 credit bureaus. Although in many cases the first thing most people want to do is to call the Credit Bureau and tell them off, this would be counterproductive. Instead the best method would be to sit down and write a credit report dispute letter.

You should read your credit report, take notes as to what you consider the problem areas are and think whether what’s on the report could actually be true. If, in finding that what’s on the report is false, you need to think through how you’re going to word your letters to remove info off credit report. You’re going to have to send a copy of this letter to each of the three main credit bureaus: TransUnion, Experian, and Equifax. Be polite and state facts as you see them. See example letter below.

Dear (credit bureau name here),

After looking at a copy of my credit file, I found that it contained erroneous information. I would like to dispute this information and request a correction. I am concerned about the information that you have put in my credit report as it could seriously impair the credit rating I enjoy with lending institutions.

You have not (state the problem here).

Be sure to include the month, and the date, and the name of the business.

I am enclosing a photocopy of my cancelled check as proof of my payment. Hopefully, this will correct the accuracy of my credit file. As you are certainly aware of, the credit bureaus are only allowed to use accurate information in a consumer’s credit file.

Thank you for correcting the above errors to insure that it doesn’t impair my personal credit. Please contact me as soon as the correction has been made and my credit report is again accurate. Please send a copy of my credit report to: (place mailing address here).

Yours,

(Your name)

Be sure to include your full name as listed in your credit report, address, Social Security number, copy of your driver’s license, copy of the credit report, and copy of your proof, i.e. cancelled check.

Be sure to retain a copy of whatever you send to each credit bureau. Make a note of the date that you mail your letters to remove info off credit report. Using certified or registered mail is a good idea, as this will give you proof of the mailing date.

Joan

Tim Gorman asked:




Credit reports provide great details about a person including name, birth date, Social security number, home address, how payments are made, income, employment history, home ownership, previous address, court cases, judgments, and bankruptcy and foreclosure records.

Above all it gives details about a person’s credit history. These include all the creditors with balances and accounts that are closed or in collections. It will also indicate if there are any late payments, and any other irregularity. In addition it will also list the requests for that credit report by creditors during the past year and requests for credit reports including those by employers for the past two years.

These reports are maintained by three nationwide credit bureaus which use slightly different sources to compile the information. Based on the information they have credit bureaus calculate a figure called the credit score. The three credit bureaus Equifax, Transunion, Experian use different formulas to arrive at their score. The credit score can be considered a mathematical way of determining the likelihood of the borrower paying back a loan.

This information can be accessed by creditors, insurers, employers, and others who have been legitimately allowed access subject to conditions through The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). It is clear that accurate information in the credit report is important to everyone concerned not only for the person about whom it is concerned but to anyone else who may want to rely on it for decision making. As such it is important to understand how the credit report is compiled and the accuracy of the information and sources on which that compilation is made.

It is important to know how and at what frequency credit information reaches the credit bureau. On examination of their procedure, it is clear that frequency of reporting varies depending on the creditor. While some creditors will report any changes in the customers’ balances every day, others will report once a month or at longer periods. This is mainly due to efficacy reasons, since with most people there will not be much of a change in credit balances. Because of that creditors will only report if there are any changes in the credit balances. This therefore means that for some people their credit report will get updated about once a month while others may not see any change in their credit reports for 3 or 6 months. On the other hand creditors will report late payments and other negative activities quite promptly.

Karl

Eddie Cacciatore, Private Eye asked:


I use a service through AMEX that keeps me posted about changes to my credit rating. They check the three agencies, but they call it a PLUS Score. What do they mean?

For example:
PLUS Score from TransUnion
This PLUS Score is based on information from your TransUnion credit report.
Your PLUS Score is calculated using the information in your credit report. Since information often differs among your three bureau reports, your PLUS Scores based on those reports will also vary.
Your PLUS Score is: 701 on a scale of 330 – 830. (GOOD)

Vincent

Liz Roberts asked:


Whenever somebody applies for credit or financing, his or her credit report will be pulled electronically from any of the three major consumer reporting agencies (CRA). These CRAs are Experian, Trans Union, or Equifax – companies that are responsible for maintaining correct and up-to-date credit information around the country. Everyone is probably aware that these three nationwide credit bureaus have to monitor billions of data records therefore it is not inevitable to find errors with the reports. A majority of consumers would have at least one omission or inaccurate detail on their credit report.

It is for this very reason that as a consumer, the responsibility of checking your own credit information falls on your shoulders. Make sure that you get a copy of your credit report from each of the three Credit Reporting Agencies. You should contact each credit bureau and ask for your free credit report (you are entitled to 1 free copy every year). If you have been denied credit within the past 60 days, you are also entitled to a free credit report.

Here is a list of each credit bureau. Make that call and start checking your credit info.

Equifax, P.O. Box 740241, Atlanta , GA 30374-0241;(800) 685-1111.

Experian(formerly TRW),P.O. Box 2002, Allen, TX 75013; (888) EXPERIAN (397-3742).

Trans Union , P.O. Box 1000 , Chester , PA 19022 ; (800) 916-8800.

Using The Internet To Obtain Your Credit Report

You can also use the internet to obtain your credit report. Many companies offer instant access to your credit report online and will offer you a free credit report if you try their credit monitoring service for 30 days. Credit monitoring services are a great way to keep track of your credit and stop potential identity thieves. As soon as you or someone else applies for credit using your name and social security number, these services will alert you via email. If you did not request this new credit you just need to log into your account and start the process of alerting the credit bureaus of potential fraud activity.

How is the information found on your credit report used

The credit information that is reported on your credit report will be used to evaluate you when you apply for credit, insurance, employment, and other purposes allowed by the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). Therefore it is crucial that you review your credit reports for accuracy from at least annually.

Why is it important to monitor your credit report

By monitoring your credit report you will save yourself a lot of problems or unpleasant surprises when you have to get that credit card or if you’re considering buying a home. You will also be aware of any potential problems that may stop the credit grantor from approving you for the credit you seek. Knowing exactly what a lender will see when they pull your credit will allow you either try to dispute the items and have them removed from your report or prepare explanations for the credit problems and discuss them with your potential lender BEFORE you apply for that line of credit.

What to do if you find inaccurate information

- Be meticulous in examining your credit information. If you see any discrepancies, verify them as soon as possible. The law says that the credit bureau should examine the matter within a reasonable amount of time, usually 30 days.

- Dispute inaccurate information your credit report. Some credit repair specialist suggests you dispute items one at a time. Some say do it all at once. I have had clients that have done both, and there was never any one way that was more successful then the other in our case. I truly believe it depends on the agent you get at the credit bureau.

- Write an ORIGINAL dispute letter. Don’t just copy a form you found online. If you found it, then so did potentially hundreds if not thousands of other people. The agents at the credit bureaus in the disputes area have probably seen any freely given online dispute letter hundreds if not thousands of times. They will not take your request as seriously as they should if you do this.

The credit bureau is required to investigate and if that item cannot be confirmed within a reasonable amount of time, that credit record must be removed from the credit file. They must provide you with a free copy of your corrected credit report. Send your dispute letter to the credit bureau via certified mail, return receipt requested. If you are using a credit monitoring system you can do this online. Just make sure they send your dispute to all 3 agencies. If the credit bureau completes its investigation and decides that the negative information should remain in your file, you can add a letter of explanation to your credit report to refute the claim.



Lance

James Peter asked:


Are you the kind who hardly bothers to check financial records until a die-hard situation arises? Did you know that the creditors can have access to your financial dealings and credit scenario before extending terms of funds to you? If you weren’t aware of it earlier, then its time now to awaken and be proactive about your credit situation.

In accordance to the federal law, you can access free annual credit report from any of the 3 bureau responsible for formulating it. These 3 bureaus are namely; Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion. Although, these bureaus report the same information but the way of presentation adopted by each one of them varies. This basically implicates that you may miss out on a certain aspect of your financial; setting if you only one of the credit bureau report.

To be on a more precautious side, you can access credit report from each of these bureaus on an annual basis, which can keep you updated pertaining to the way how others perceive your credit situation. The information that forms the base for formulating the credit report is collated from lenders and merchants. These individuals may report certain misleading information that may be recorded in your credit document, and thereby affecting the opportunities you can avail in the market. At least once on an annual basis, a credit report should be consulted to track down any misleading information if any, and get it corrected.

To get credit report has turns out to be a lot easier in the past few years, with the emergence of online services providers. These services providers are accessible all round the clock, and offer the ease to avail this financial document from any location. But a word of caution is that while availing services from the online providers, it is advisable to authenticate them thoroughly. Only after you have authenticated and understood the terms of the provider properly, it is advisable to avail any services through them. This course of action can enable you to evade any future hurdles that may arise.



Stacy

temptedlonging asked:


I was recently denied a credit card. The letter they sent had three reporting companies. Under reasons for denial they listed…

“Based on the credit report from _____ for *me*, credit bureau information is missing or unavailable”

it said this three times – one for each company.

What does this mean?

Sharon