Repairing Discrepancies in Your Credit Report
Most everyone knows how important your credit report is... it
can determine whether or not you are eligible for various loans,
credit cards, and even some jobs and other social positions. A
poor credit report can have a negative effect on your life in
general as you find it much more difficult to get some of the
things that you need, whereas a good credit report can open
doors for you that you might not have even known existed.
If you have poor or bad credit, it's possible that you might not
even know it... and to make matters worse, you might not even
deserve it. It is entirely possible for companies that make
reports to credit bureaus to make mistakes, and unfortunately
those mistakes can have a serious effect on your credit score.
The information provided below is designed to get you on the
right track to checking your credit report information and
making sure that everything is as it should be... and getting
things corrected if they are wrong and causing damage to your
credit score.
Checking Your Report
Obviously, the first thing that you need to do to check the
accuracy of your credit report is to obtain a copy of your
report. These can be purchased, gotten free through certain
companies and services, and in some cases are even provided free
by the government if you live in certain countries or meet
certain criteria. Once you've received a copy of your credit
report, take a little time to look over it and get a feel for
how the data is displayed... it may vary slightly, depending
upon which reporting agency issued the report.
Confirming The Information Begin checking over your credit
report to see which accounts and loans of yours are listed and
what the status of each is. You might not find all of your
current accounts and loans on the report, but don't be
alarmed... some lenders and credit issuers don't report
regularly or at all. Check over your information for any
accounts that you simply don't recognize, and make a note of
which accounts you do recognize and what they correspond with in
regards to your bills.
Finding Errors
At this point, you should make a note of any accounts on your
report that you don't recognize since they can be a warning sign
of identity theft. You should also begin checking the status of
each listing that you do recognize... make sure that accounts
that are up-to-date don't list you as having missed payments,
and that accounts which are no longer active aren't listed as
open and behind. Take the time to make notes of any incorrect
information that you find, because there's a good change that
any incorrect information might be bringing down your credit
score more than it should.
Fixing Credit Errors
Once you've compiled a listing of mistakes and accounts that you
don't recognize, you should draft a letter to the issuer of the
credit report to question the authenticity of the account
claims. The credit reporting agency will begin to investigate
the claims, requesting up-to-date information from the account
issuer to show that the account listings that they have made are
valid. If the information is found to be incorrect, it will
usually be repaired; if the account issuer doesn't respond to
the inquiry within a certain time limit, then the negative
report will be removed entirely. This can greatly improve your
credit score with minimal effort on your part.
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