Obtaining A Credit Report

Learn How Obtaining A Credit Report At Least Once A Year Can Help You

What is a credit report?

A credit report is an organized list of what credit you have currently and what credit you have had in the past. It will also list your reported places of employment, what companies have requested your credit report, and may also include your credit score. The report starts off by listing your negative creditors in alphabetical order, then it lists your positive creditors, and finally it lists what companies have inquired about your credit. Each of the creditor listings include and address, an outstanding balance, terms or the credit such as length of payment, and it lists if the payments have been on time or not. This holds true for the negative and the positive creditors. The credit inquiries are listed according to when the inquiry took place and are in chronological order. Somewhere on the credit report there may be a score but this is normally is where you or someone else have paid for this information.

How can you obtain your credit report?

There are 3 credit reporting agencies: Transunion, Experian, and Equifax, each of these offers a free report to someone who has been recently turned down for credit usually within the past 60 days or so. There is also an option of paying for them. There is now a program that allows each and every consumer to obtain their credit report once a year for free this will only cost the consumer if they require a credit score along with the free report.

How can obtaining your report once a year help you?

You will be able to see what each company is reporting about your payment habits. There are a lot of companies reporting to credit agencies everyday and there are bound to be some mistakes made. If you are looking at your report often then you can catch these mistakes.