Credit Repair – Reading Your Credit Reports Accurately
If you get annual general check ups to assess your health, you need to have a copy of your credit report to find out what is the real score when it comes to your finances. A copy of your credit report will tell you if you need to go through credit repair or not. If everything looks like hieroglyphics, that’s fine. This article will help you understand your credit report better.
You will have to obtain credit reports from the three prominent credit bureaus – Experian, TransUnion and Equifax. Every year, you will be able to receive a free complementary copy of your credit reports from each of the three bureaus. You will need to pay a small amount when requesting for a second copy or your credit score.
Make sure that you request for the copies yourself. These credit bureaus prepare credit reports differently. They tend to censor themselves from using any technical terms and other jargons that may only be comprehensible to people who are involved in the business.
They write credit reports that can easily be understood by average consumers.
Although it differs according to the credit bureau, you will more often than not find the following sections: Identification, Credit History, Collections, Courthouse Records and Inquiries. You have to go over each section and note any inconsistencies with the details. You can dispute any erroneous information that you discover.
First check the Identification section. Make sure that your name, addresses, birth date, Social Security number, telephone numbers, driver’s license number, employer and spouse’s name are all correct. You should be extra thorough with your Social Security number. If your SS number is incorrect, it’s very possible that your credit report doesn’t belong to you.
The Credit History will reflect all your accounts together with your payments.
There are two kinds of credit that you will see in this section: revolving and installment. The revolving credit is usually associated with credit cards while installment includes car loans and mortgages.
You will also find the name of the company, the total value of the loan, your credit limits, your balance, monthly amortizations and the status of your accounts. Go over everything in this section and try to find any account that isn’t familiar or have already paid off but the status hasn’t been updated yet.
If you find any inconsistencies, you can write a dispute letter to your credit bureaus pertaining to that particular piece information so that it can be removed. You may opt to do this yourself, or you can employ a credit repair firm to help you with this task.