Credit Report Information and Fixing Errors
Step 2
Below are the details of the next step once you received all 4 major credit reports. We will be going over information in your report, how to read them, and taking care of errors if there happens to be 1 or more of them.
Details:
Now that you have your reports, it's time to go through them. Lets go over 1 complete report at a time. If you received your report online you could print them out to highlight any possible errors you may come across for quick reference later. You want to go over everything very carefully to ensure you do not skip over an error.
Start at the top and go down line by line. You will see your personal information, such as your legal name, nick-names, address, both current and old addresses. Go over each thing and if anything comes up unfamiliar take a note of it. I once had a second social security number in my Experian report, so even though you may think that kind of information is always correct, far to often it isn't.
Once you have gone over your personal information and have taken note of any possible errors, it's time to move on to your accounts.
Depending on the site or Credit Reporting Agencies, you may have positive accounts listed first or you may have negative information first. Either way, go over them line by line. Are the positive accounts correct? Things like the credit limits on your credit cards are sometimes not updated when they give you a credit limit increase, and can hurt your credit utilization. You want to keep your utilization low, 10% or less of your limit is best. So check over everything, on every account. If you would like more info on what helps or hurt your score, check out Credit Facts or Credit info.
You may find there is an account missing on your report, that's actually common. Lenders are not required to report to all the credit bureaus, so you may find accounts in some reports but not in others. Sometimes this is a good thing when it's a negative account, but if it's a positive account missing, you would want it reported to all the bureaus if possible. There's really not much you can do about that. Some people have asked their lender to report to all the reporting agencies, some lenders comply some decline. If it's a positive account, it wouldn't hurt to ask.
Negative Accounts, this is the reason your credit score is low. Pay extra close attention to these. The first thing to take close note of is the date of first delinquency. If it's 7 years or older, this can easily be disputed and removed. You aren't doing anything wrong or illegal by disputing this information even if it's correct and you did become delinquent. There are laws which require the reporting agencies to remove negative accounts that are 7 years or older, whether paid or unpaid. 7 years of negative information in your credit report is the price you pay. Think of it as a prison sentence, you do bad you're sentenced to 7 years of negative account information. Now, if it is still unpaid, the negative information cannot be listed in your credit report, but you do still technically owe this money. Well, that's the case with most accounts, there are some accounts which can remain on your report longer, such as tax liens or certain bankruptcy cases. If it's under 7 years don't give up, there are steps coming up to possibly remedy these negative accounts.
After going over everything in 1 of your 4 reports, continue on to the next report until you are finished with all of them. Take notes along the way for everything you feel is or could be an error. On the next step, we have a PDF file that shows a spreadsheet example which lists negative accounts from all the different bureaus. We found this is an easy way to keep track of the negative accounts and which credit bureaus are reporting the negative account(s).
Now you have completed the first of 2 steps in this program, it's time to dispute any potential errors, this includes negative accounts over 7 years old. There's several ways you can dispute information, the fastest and easiest is disputing it online. You will need your Credit Report Number to dispute online so have it ready for each report. The second easiest is calling up the credit bureau that's reporting an error. You will need the account name and number for accounts you are disputing, and if there is any problems with your personal information you could talk to them about it at that point.
Once you have disputed all the information in each of your credit reports, you are finished. The disputing process usually takes 30 days or less, but in some rare occasions it can take longer.
The next thing we are going to work on is negative accounts that are correct and is less then 7 years old. Step 3 will go into the details on how to do this. This is the step most people can become frustrated with in no time. The key is to not get caught up in the day to day, keep your eye on your goal. Be patient but be persistent. When you're ready for this step go to Step 3.