Free Credit Bureau Report

Mike Clover asked:




Your credit score report can be affect by more than your available credit history. We talk about how credit cards, mortgages, car loans, and any type of loan that reports to all 3 credit bureaus will affect your credit score. We don’t always talk about utility companies and how they can have a negative impact on your credit report. Here are utility companies I like to consider non-creditors. In other words these companies don’t give you a line credit, they just provide a service.

Utility companies

- Phone companies

- Electric companies

- Security companies

- Cell phone companies

- Water companies

- Gas companies

- Cable companies

- Internet Companies

Let’s assume you are having a tough time currently, and you stop paying your cable bill. The cable company will give you a little time to pay off the debt for service rendered, but will eventually turn that debt over to a collection company. The collection company in return will report that obligation to the 3 credit bureaus wanting their money. This is how it works with any of the companies mention. Once this collection reports to the credit bureaus your credit rating just dropped about 100 points. Utility companies on the other hand don’t help your credit when you are in good standing, but will also hurt your credit score if you don’t pay. Once the collection hits your credit report, and you finally decide to pay off the collection, the collection will be on your credit report for 7 years. 7 years of negative information will be on your credit report. If you don’t pay the collection, the collection company can sell the collection repeatedly to different collection companies which will ultimately drive down your credit score even more.

Pay your bills on-time

If you get behind, call your creditors immediately and work out a payment arrangement with them. They will typically work with you, especially during tough economic times. A creditor or utility company would rather get some form of payment versus nothing. If you don’t pay your bills including utility bills it will affect your credit score report. With lending getting extremely tough currently, your credit scores are more important than ever. If you have credit issues, the banks may look at your credit history as too big of a risk for there portfolio.

Don’t assume if you don’t pay utility it will not affect your credit. Because it will affect your credit, and will not go away until you pay it off. If you are unsure what is on your credit report, get a copy of your free credit score report today.

Ellen

Justin Hutto asked:




NCO Financial is a collection agency. They work with financial services, healthcare, utilities, education and more.

They have been in business since 1926. They do both first party and third party collections.

They are located in 9 different countries with over 140 operation centers. They are headquartered in Horsham, Pennsylvania.

They claim to be customer oriented and committed to integrity, teamwork and quality.

NCO Financial has the authority to do credit reporting. Meaning they can make negative listings on your credit report. If this happens your credit score will be lowered.

However there is hope, you can have this listing removed. There are two options to have a listing removed from your credit report.

1. You can dispute the listing with the credit bureau directly.

You can do this yourself by sending a dispute letter to the credit bureaus. Or you can hire a credit repair firm to handle the dispute process on your behalf.

If you do this yourself you must send a dispute letter to each credit bureau disputing the validity of the negative listing. Common reasons for a dispute are: the account has been paid, not your account, or the listing is inaccurate.

2. You can pay NCO Financial. I would recommend disputing the listing first and then if that is unsuccessful consider paying.

However before you pay you should negotiate a settlement offer. Often you do not have to pay the full amount. I would suggest offering 50% of the balance.

Also make sure that you have in writing that NCO Financial will remove the negative listing from your credit report in exchange for payment. Otherwise the listing will remain on your credit report and making payment will not help improve your credit score.

You should also be aware that NCO Financial may not be the only company reporting a negative listing for this account. The creditor may also have reported this account as a negative listing too.

It is common for collection agencies to sell accounts that they are unsuccessful collecting on. Thus NCO may have sold your account to another collection agency that has created a negative listing on your credit report too.

If you have the same account reported more than once on your credit file then I would suggest consulting with a professional credit repair firm because making payment to one company will not remove all the negative listings on your credit report.

However if the debt is legitimate and you decide to make payment, do not pay the full amount. Collection agencies buy your account for pennies on the dollar. Thus you are giving them a huge profit if you pay 100% of the balance.

Also do not be fooled into believing that NCO has the authority to remove a negative listing from the creditor or another collection agency.

I would recommend having all communications with NCO in writing. This way if there is a breach of your settlement agreement you have written documentation.

In sum, make sure that if you do settle that you have written documentation that the listing will be removed from your credit report in exchange for payment.

Rose

Samantha Monroe asked:




People who are keen on maintaining high credit score know the importance of a credit report. Having a very detailed credit report is the first step towards ensuring your credit score remains high.

Getting a detailed report from any of the bureaus may cost you some money. If you are really serious about keeping a check on your report, then you would know you need a real report and won’t find it difficult to spare $20 to get a very detailed report.

After getting a detailed report, you should continue in that same vein by going through the report with a fine comb and identifying EVERY wrong entry no matter how small. Every entry that is incorrect should and must be corrected for the sake of your credit score. NEVER over look anything.

Now you have all the wrong entries you have found and are ready to dispute. One important thing to bear in mind is that your letter MUST be concise because the bureaus have a huge amount of letters to treat so they do not need long letters as any such letter stands a risk of not being processed.

One big problem you may face is using the right identifying information for a given bureau as different bureaus have different identifiers. Send the right information to the right bureau.

Another sad truth here is that many people have tried to dispute without success and have had to repeat a number of times. Your letter may not even be processed so you should be ready and willing to keep sending.

Disputing a credit report, removing a judgment or generally repairing your credit does not have to be such a drag or a mission impossible. You can engage the services of professionals to take the burden off you while achieving results you may never be able to achieve on your own. Save yourself the heartache and disappointment of having you credit bureau dispute letter rejected or not processed by allowing professional handle it for you.

Dana

Cris Rendall asked:




Generally there is not much to going over your credit reports. You read over them double-check a few items and more or less forget about them until next year. Or maybe you’re in a different situation. This could be the first time you’ve ever ordered your credit reports and some of the items just don’t seem right. At first it may seem quite distressing to notice these inaccurate items. The fact is many people don’t know how to go about fixing the problem. Here will discuss how to remove these items and stop the damaging effects that they have on your credit.

Be sure to keep good records

In order to dispute an item you will need to provide documentation to the creditor and the credit bureaus. Since you obviously won’t know ahead of time what the mistakes will be keep good records. Canceled checks, billing statements, and receipts are all very useful when disputing an item. Keep the originals for yourself and send copies to whatever parties may need.

Notify the credit bureau

By law the credit bureau must investigate all legitimate claims that are put in writing. If you notice errors take action as quickly as possible. Keep in mind that just because an item is negative does not mean it’s inaccurate. You only waste your time and everyone else’s by submitting false claims.

First compose a letter to the credit reporting agency with a detailed description of the inaccurate item. Provide as clearly as possible why this item is in error. Include with the letter copies of all supporting evidence. Also include your name and address.

Mail this information by certified mail with a return receipt requested. What this does for you is let you know when the item was received. The credit bureau is required to investigate all written claims within 30 days. This is the initial investigation so do not expect a full resolution in that time frame. It can unfortunately take much longer.

Notify the creditor

Follow the same steps that you took when you contacted the credit bureau. Once the creditor has been notified they must include a note on your credit report indicating that the item has been disputed. This will continue until it is determined to be correct or in fact an error. To help protect consumers the burden of proof lies in the hands of the creditor. If they cannot prove that the item is true it must be corrected or removed. Many laws are either in the process of being passed or have passed recently that deal with how items are reported. The government is starting to crack down because of the problems these inaccuracies have caused the American people.

It’s very important to be thorough in checking over your credit report each year. Errors are unfortunately common and unless you find them chances are no one else will. It is essential that you fix your credit report errors because they will hurt your score. If you find that there are multiple errors or if you do not have time to do this yourself please look into professional credit repair, there are affordable and reputable companies out there.

Zachary