Starting around December 2004, you are entitled to get a copy of your credit report for free one time per year in almost all states. So why are so few people taking advantage of this service, which used to cost about $7.50 to get a copy of your report? I think the reason is because not everyone realizes that ones credit report contains more inaccurate data that you can shake a stick at. Who knows how many errors it contains, but chances are great that your report contains errors. This is due in large part to the massive amount of data that the credit agencies need to store for each and every consumer and business on the planet. This is compounded by the fact that one lenders reported to TransUnion last year and has changed contracts and is now reporting to Equifax this year. I mean, think about it for just a second. If you add together all consumers and all businesses in the US, then add at least one record for each loan or credit card account they currently have or ever have had, you arrive at an incredible number which represents BILLIONS of records. That is a system administrators nightmare but it is the job they took on. Now if only 1% of that database is in error, then that means that there are MILLIONS of records with errors, and the actual percentage shown in recent studies if more than 25% are in error! One of the biggest problems of all is that YOU are in charge of ensuring that those errors get fixed. They do not fix themselves and the only way they will get corrected to reflect accurate information is if YOU initiate the dispute with the credit bureaus. You need to do this individually with each of the three major credit bureaus Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian. The reason for this is because their version of your credit report probably contains different errors! Now the thing that results by having inaccurate data in your credit history profile in that your credit score is not calculated correctly. Your credit score, sometimes also known as a FICO score, is a number that the credit bureaus have come up with as a quick way to gauge your credit worthiness. Although your credit score may be higher than it should be based on these errors, chances are greater that your credit score is worse than it should be. You need to get those errors and get that negative information removed. How do you do that? You start by getting yourself a copy of your credit report, and get a separate report from each agency. Read through the report very carefully and note anything that is wrong or is in error. Then file a dispute letter. After you have filed a dispute with the credit bureau, they then have 30 days to work on it, at the end of which they either need to remove the data or leave it. The deciding factor here is whether or not the lender has verified the information. You see, the attitude of the credit bureaus is that they only report the news, they dont make the news, so if some inaccurate information is verified, you need to take that up with that lender. Now there is the question of the stuff that is REALLY in error, instead of just the stuff that while technically accurate, still reflects poorly on you. But with this, the procedure to file a dispute is exactly the same, and the credit bureaus have those same 30 days to either prove the information or to remove it from your credit report. After all of this, you should have a credit report that reads the way you want it to read, and that will result in your credit score being as high as it can be.
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