When you were young, did you often wonder what your teacher told your parents at parent-teacher conferences? Now that you’re an adult, you may find yourself just as curious about your credit report. What exactly are the reporting agencies telling your creditors about you? Is the information good, bad, or indifferent?
You have every reason to be concerned about the information found in your credit report. This information will determine what type of financing you are offered when you purchase a home, what rate of interest you will pay when you buy a car, and, in some cases, if you are chosen for a new job. You should definitely know what’s in your credit report.
Fortunately, thanks to an act passed by Congress a few years ago, everyone is allowed to request his credit report from each of the three reporting agencies once a year. If you spread your requests between the different agencies, you could get a copy of your report as often as every four months.
Simply requesting a copy of your credit report isn’t enough, however. Once you have it, there are a few things you should do with it. Remember that in the war against identify theft that knowledge is power and your credit report can be your most important tool.
The first thing you should look for when inspecting your credit report are accounts that you don’t recognize. Make sure that you understand what each account listed on your credit report represents. If something looks unfamiliar, you can contact the creditor through the contact information included with the report.
The next thing you’ll want to review in your credit report is that all of the information included is accurate. If a creditor reports that you’ve been late six times with your payments, but you know that you’ve always been right on time, you should dispute that information on your report. Those falsely reported late payments could hurt your credit score.
Finally, you should know what steps you need to take if you have found invalid information in your report. At the end of the report, you can usually find directions to start the correction process. Be sure to report incorrect information to the reporting agency as soon as possible to get the matter cleared up.
Reviewing your credit report regularly is one of the best methods of finding signs of identity theft and nipping these crimes in the bud. If your investigation of incorrect information found in your report leads you to discover that you’ve been the victim of identity theft, don’t forget to notify your local authorities and the involved creditors right away. You’ll need to get both of these entities involved to repair any damage that has been done.
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