What do creditors list in a credit report and what can you do if you find incorrect data on it that is lowering your credit rating?
What is listed on your report?
- Your Basic information: Name (aka names, too), social security number, address, work history, and state ID or license numbers.
- Your debts: Including what is on your public record such as judgments and liens on your property, bankruptcy, attachments on wages, and current accounts in collection.
- Credit history: Accounts opened: date, type, limits and balance, payment history; child support payments that are late; and checking accounts that are overdrawn.
- Credit Checks: Every time you sign up for a new account, an inquiry is made. Too many inquiries show up negatively. Inquires that are made by you via free annual credit report check do not affect you negatively.
What is considered when scoring a person’s credit?
Everything that can be established about your income, payments, accounts and debts can be used as a part of your credit assessment. Your credit score runs between 350 and 850; the higher the score the better it is for you as far as creditors considering risks with you.
What if you find something inaccurate on your report?
If you find inaccurate or incomplete information on your report, you can file a dispute with whichever of the three credit reporting agencies you are seeing the error. An investigation will be performed with the creditors in dispute. Usually after about 45 days a report will be sent to the credit reporting agency that will either delete the data that is found to be inaccurate or it will stay on the report if found to be correct. If a change is made, a letter will be sent from the creditor to the reporting agency who will then correct the report.
Usually negative credit data is deleted after 7 years and for bankruptcies after 10 years. If you find data that is older than 7 years you should dispute that information so it will be deleted. As for bankruptcies, that is usually automatically removed after 10 years, but it doesn’t hurt to check it to make sure.
If you pay attention to your debts with creditors and pay in a timely fashion, neither too fast nor too slow, you will rarely have issues on your report. But, the reality is that creditors don’t always keep up with the data. Checking your credit history is easy and usually free. If you examine it at least once a year and resolve issues quickly your score will stay healthy.
