Free Credit Bureau Report

Vincent Dail asked:




Your credit report contains information about where you work, live and how you pay your bills (On time or not). It also may show whether you’ve been sued, arrested or have filed for bankruptcy with in the last 10 years. Companies called consumer reporting agencies (cra) or credit bureaus compile and sell your credit report to businesses all over the world.

Many financial advisors suggest that you periodically review your credit report for inaccuracies or omissions. This could be especially important if you’re considering making a major purchase, such as buying a home. Checking in advance on the accuracy of information in your credit file could speed the credit-granting process, clean credit is a must.

Because businesses use this information to evaluate your applications for credit, insurance, employment, and other purposes allowed by the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), it’s important that the information in your report is complete and accurate.

Whenever you apply for any type of credit or financing, a credit report is pulled from at least one of the three major credit bureaus. You want a clean credit report to be pulled. While there are hundreds of smaller credit bureaus around the country, virtually every credit bureau is affiliated with either Experian, Trans Union, or Equifax.

Getting Your Clean Credit Report

If you’ve been denied credit, insurance, or employment because of information supplied by a credit reporting agency, the FCRA says the company you applied to must give you the agency`s name, address, and telephone number. If you contact the agency for a copy of your report within 60 days of receiving a denial notice, the report is free. In addition, you’re entitled to one free copy of your report a year.

If you simply want a copy of your report, call each credit bureau listed since more than one agency may have a file on you, some with different information.

The three major national credit bureaus are:

Equifax, P.O. Box 740241, Atlanta, GA 30374-0241; (800) 685-1111.

Experian (formerly TRW), P.O. Box 2002, Allen, TX 75013; (888) EXPERIAN (397-3742).

Trans Union, P.O. Box 1000, Chester, PA 19022; (800) 916-8800.

Correcting Errors For Clean Credit.

To protect all your rights under the law and to keep your credit clean contact both the CRA and the information provider.

First to get clean credit reports, tell the credit reporting agency in writing what information you believe is inaccurate. Include copies (please keep your originals) of documents that support your position. In addition to providing your complete name and address, your letter should clearly identify each item in your report you dispute, state the facts and explain why you dispute the information, and request deletion or correction. Always keep copies of your dispute letter.

They must reinvestigate the items in question, usually within 30 days, unless they consider your dispute frivolous. They also must forward all relevant data you provide about the dispute to the information provider. After the information provider receives notice of a dispute from the CRA, it must investigate, review all relevant information provided by the CRA, and report the results to the CRA. If the information provider finds the disputed information to be inaccurate, it must notify all nationwide CRAs so they can correct this information in your file. Disputed information that cannot be verified must be deleted from your file, then you will recieve a clean credit report, with that item removed.

If your report contains erroneous information, the CRA must correct it(clean credit).

If an item is incomplete, the CRA must complete it. For example, if your file showed that you were late making payments ( 30 days or more), but failed to show that you were no longer delinquent, the CRA must show that you’re current.

If your file shows an account that belongs only to another person, the CRA must delete it.

When the reinvestigation is complete, they must give you the written results and a free copy of your clean credit report, if the dispute results in a change. If an item is changed or removed, they cannot put the disputed information back in your file unless the information provider verifies its accuracy and completeness.

Also, if you request, they must send notices of clean credit report corrections to anyone who received your report in the past six months. Job applicants can have a corrected copy of their clean credit report sent to anyone who received a copy during the past two years for employment purposes. If a reinvestigation does not resolve your dispute, ask the CRA to include your statement of the dispute in your file and in future reports.

Second, in addition to writing to the credit agency, tell the creditor or other information provider in writing that you dispute an item. Again, include copies (please not originals) of documents that support your position. Many providers specify an address for disputes. If the provider then reports the item to any credit reporting angency, it must include a notice of your dispute. In addition, if you are correct that is, if the disputed information is not accurate the information provider may not use it again, thus you will have a clean credit report.

When negative information in your report is accurate, only the passage of time can assure its removal. Accurate negative information can generally stay on your report for 7 years.

Clean Credit: There are certain exceptions:

Bankruptcy information may be reported for 10 years.

Information about criminal convictions may be reported without any time limitation.

Credit information reported in response to an application for a job with a salary of more than $75,000 has no time limit.

Information about a lawsuit or an unpaid judgment against you can be reported for seven years or until the statute of limitations runs out, whichever is longer. Criminal convictions can be reported without any time limit.

Credit information reported because of an application for more than $150,000 worth of credit or life insurance has no time limit.

Adding clean credit accounts to your file:

Your credit file may not reflect all your clean credit accounts. Although most national department stores and all-purpose bank credit card accounts will be included in your file, not all creditors supply information: Some travel, entertainment, gasoline card companies, local retailers, and credit unions are among those creditors that don’t report clean credit.

If you’ve been told you were denied clean credit because of an insufficient credit file or no credit file and you have accounts with creditors that don’t appear in your credit file, ask the CRA to add this information to future reports. This will help get you on the road to a clean credit report. Although they are not required to do so, many CRAs will add verifiable accounts for a fee. You should, however, understand that if these creditors do not report to the CRA on a regular basis, these added items will not be updated in your file.

Tracy

Tim Gorman asked:




Credit reports provide great details about a person including name, birth date, Social security number, home address, how payments are made, income, employment history, home ownership, previous address, court cases, judgments, and bankruptcy and foreclosure records.

Above all it gives details about a person’s credit history. These include all the creditors with balances and accounts that are closed or in collections. It will also indicate if there are any late payments, and any other irregularity. In addition it will also list the requests for that credit report by creditors during the past year and requests for credit reports including those by employers for the past two years.

These reports are maintained by three nationwide credit bureaus which use slightly different sources to compile the information. Based on the information they have credit bureaus calculate a figure called the credit score. The three credit bureaus Equifax, Transunion, Experian use different formulas to arrive at their score. The credit score can be considered a mathematical way of determining the likelihood of the borrower paying back a loan.

This information can be accessed by creditors, insurers, employers, and others who have been legitimately allowed access subject to conditions through The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). It is clear that accurate information in the credit report is important to everyone concerned not only for the person about whom it is concerned but to anyone else who may want to rely on it for decision making. As such it is important to understand how the credit report is compiled and the accuracy of the information and sources on which that compilation is made.

It is important to know how and at what frequency credit information reaches the credit bureau. On examination of their procedure, it is clear that frequency of reporting varies depending on the creditor. While some creditors will report any changes in the customers’ balances every day, others will report once a month or at longer periods. This is mainly due to efficacy reasons, since with most people there will not be much of a change in credit balances. Because of that creditors will only report if there are any changes in the credit balances. This therefore means that for some people their credit report will get updated about once a month while others may not see any change in their credit reports for 3 or 6 months. On the other hand creditors will report late payments and other negative activities quite promptly.

Katherine

Robert M Moore asked:




If you have a collection account on your credit report and would like it removed. Here is how you do this.

Is the collection debt is NOT paid off? This is actually good because now you have leverage with the agency/creditor. First, negotiate with the collector that you are willing to pay the debt, if they will remove the negative items from your credit report. Here are few things to remember when negotiating.

1) Don’t let me them bully you around. You are in the driver seat because you have the money.
2) Offer something much lower than the debt amount they are trying to collect on. Even as low as 50%. Often times the debt has outrageous fees and interest tacked onto it. Also, the agency ‘bought’ this debt from the creditor at pennies on the dollar so any debt they collect is good for them.
3) Don’t give up until you have an agreement that you are satisfied with.
Once, this is verbally agreed upon, write out a check in the agreed amount and then write a letter to this affect;

Dear XXXX,

This letter is in regards to our recent conversation (blah, blah, blah). Enclosed is a check (check # XXXX) in the amount of $XXX.XX. By cashing this check, [name of creditor/collection agency] agrees to settle all outstanding debts against [your name here] and considers all collections paid in full. In addition, [name of creditor/collection agency] will remove the ‘collection’ account from [your name here]‘s [name of credit bureau] credit report.

Regards,
[your name here]

I have rarely seen this not work. Sometimes I even send in a letter like this without having a conversation with Collection Agency. It’s so tempting to the agency to have that money that they take it (I’ve only had one ever reject it).

Is the collection debt already paid off? This becomes a little trickier. At this point, the best strategy is to keep bothering the creditor, credit bureau, and collection agency to remove the collection account until they take it off.

Write letters to the creditor and collection agency explaining that the debt has been paid and request that they remove the collection item from your credit report. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, again.

Write letters the creditor bureau asking them to verify the collection account with the creditor. Through the FRCA (Fair Credit Reporting Act), the bureau has a 30 day statute of limitations to verify this information, if not, they are obligated to remove the item from the credit report. Again, if at first you don’t succeed, try, try, again.

There are credit restoration services that are very effective at this ‘letter writing’. Lexington Law Firm is the biggest credit restoration firm touting millions of deletions (free consultation number; 800-223-7615). This makes sense if you have numerous items with multiple credit bureaus. Good Luck.

Ricky

Jamie Mathis asked:


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A credit report is a record of an individual’s or company’s past borrowing and repaying, including information about late payments and bankruptcy. In the U.S., when a customer fills out an application for credit from a bank, store or credit card company, their information is forwarded to a credit bureau. The credit bureau matches the name, address and other identifying information on the credit applicant with information retained by the bureau in its files. That’s why it’s very important for all Americans to know and understand their credit score. This information is used by lenders such as credit card companies to determine an individual’s credit worthiness; that is, determining an individual’s willingness to repay a loan.

These factors help lenders determine whether to extend credit, and on what terms. With the adoption of risk-based pricing on almost all lending in the financial services industry, this report has become even more important since it is usually the sole element used to choose the annual percentage rate (APR), grace period and other contractual obligations of the credit card or loan. Don’t wait – click on the link above to get your Boston Free Credit Report now!



Eleanor

Clara Ghomes asked:




Credit reports are the record of a person or company’s data regarding their previous borrowing, repaying, late payments and bankruptcy. It is determine the individual’s willingness and ability to repay the debt. These are measured differently in different countries, but there are some common factors which are mentioned below:

1. The payment history is a record of any wrong or untimely payments. Usually, if the record is of more than thirty days, then these are lowered.

2. The control of the borrowers over the debt is another factor. The lenders desire to see that the borrowers aren’t living beyond the means. Many people say that ratings improve if the credit payments (non-mortgage) don’t exceed more than 15 % of the after tax income each month of the borrower.

3. Lenders see things like longevity in the borrower’s job and home (a minimum of two years) as a sign of stability and responsibility. Although, they have nothing against better offers from different companies or business expansion plans.

4. With re-aging, the account’s date of the last action is changed. This can alter the credit rating considerably. There are several guidelines which clarify re-aging in accounts.

5. The lenders consider accounts having balances closer to their limits as more risky.

Inquiries are noted on the credit file of a consumer whenever any company requests information from the individual’s file. These inquiries might or might not affect the credit score of the consumer. Depending upon the effect on the worthiness or credit rating, the inquiries are divided into soft and hard enquiries. The soft inquiries don’t have any effect on the credit rating and some of these inquiries are:

1. Pre-screening inquiries: these are inquiries in which the bureau sells the consumer’s information to a company which issues loans, credit cards, insurance, loan etc. on the criteria(s) established by the lender.

2. When creditors check the credit files of their customer periodically.

3. When any credit counselling agency obtains the consumer’s credit report (with his/her permission) regarding identity theft.

4. Or when a consumer checks his/her credit report.

Hard inquiries are those which do affect these of the consumer. When consumers seek a loan or credit, then the lenders make ‘hard’ inquiries (connection with permitted purpose). When the lenders are granted permissible purpose, they can ‘pull’ the consumer’s file to extend credit to the user. These inquiries can directly affect the credit rating of the consumer. It can be helped by keeping inquiries to a minimum. If a consumer has many inquiries on an individual’s report in a short span of time, then the lender might perceive it as a sign of financial problem, and might even consider that individual as a credit risk.

Unused credit cards can also affect the credit rating. It is believed that having a lot of credit cards can adversely affect the credit score, but closing credit lines might not improve the rating.

Tommy