Your Credit Information And How It Effects Our Life
Your credit information may be of no use to you. If you’re not planning on buying a house or renting an apartment, buying a car, taking out a loan, paying for college or getting a new credit card, then you won’t need to worry about getting your free credit score. However, most people need to visit www.AnnualCreditReport.com to get a listing of all late payments, charge-offs, debts, collections, loans, liens and types of credit accounts open, so they can get an honest appraisal of their borrowing power. Credit report services from Equifax, Experian and TransUnion each will offer you a free report once a year to help you see where you are and where you need to be financially.
Once you have your credit information, you should focus on improving credit scores. Check out your free credit score reports from Equifax, TransUnion and Experian. Credit reporting is voluntary, so the files may all be slightly different. Once you have this credit info, examine your reports for errors. Roughly one-third of credit reports contain serious errors because the credit bureau doesn’t verify the information your creditors send to them. Therefore, keeping clear credit is your responsibility. Some of the items may come off through a dispute, where you send a letter or a photocopy of your credit report with circles around the mistakes and supporting documents to validate your dispute. As for the legitimate blemishes, they’ll be on your credit for up to seven years and will likely only be fixed through consistent on-time bill payment. You can phase out the use of unneeded credit card accounts but do not close them. Simply stop using them and pay then off. Lastly, a secured credit card can help you re-establish regular on-time payment history again.
To file a dispute about your credit information, you should write a letter to each of the three major credit bureaus, which are Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. In your letter, include the date, your address and name, phone number and social security number. Just write “The following data is incorrect and should be updated,” then list each inaccuracy, explaining why it’s wrong and what it should be updated with. Attach a marked copy of your credit score report and include all previous communication, account records or statements that will help verify your version of the truth. Mail is the best way to dispute with Equifax and TransUnion, while Experian only allows online disputes. The credit bureaus then have 30 days to check and repair your credit info. Once once done, they will send you a letter including what was or was not updated. If you’re not happy with the letter, then you can try to resubmit with different documentation or go directly to the creditor to resolve.
Sometimes, looking at your credit information is the best way to bring to light an identity theft if you are don’t use one of the identity theft products such as Life Lock who monitor your credit information for you and watch for any unusual activity. If you find unusual in your credit information that you have absolutely no explanation for, a loan, a new TV on credit etc. contact the bureaus immediately and police for information on your next steps. Without any form of protection, taking a look at your credit information is probably the only way to avoid identity theft running amok. It cannot prevent it but at least it stops it getting worse.
To get more credit information, you can check out www.Credit.com. Here you can look up info on popular credit cards, like the Chevron credit card, learn how to plan to buy a house or a car, learn about overcoming challenges and poor credit scores, and get tools on planning for retirement. You can download money management worksheets and check out online finance calculators, as well as gain access to registered credit experts.
