Credit Reports
What is a "credit report"?
A credit report is a history of all your credit transactions. There are three credit reporting agencies that compile these reports. One is called Experian, one is called Equifax, and one is called TransUnion. They keep a history of whether you make your loan payments on time and how much money you actually owe on your credit cards. All that credit history together makes up a credit report, your personal credit report.
How can I get a copy of my credit report?
Under law, you are actually entitled to a free copy of your credit report every year from each of the three credit bureaus. You go to a website called www.annualcreditreport.com and you can request a free credit report. Now what we at Kiplinger recommend is that you request one copy of your report from each of the credit reporting agencies over the course of the year. So in other words, every four months or so you can get a different copy of your credit report from a different agency.That way, over the course of the year, you can make sure that everything is exactly as it should be, and you can see whether all the reports agree and if there are any mistakes in the credit reports.
How often should I check my credit report?
You should check your credit report every year. And you should be looking for things like mistakes in the credit report, someone else's name in your credit report, things that have been reported, charges that have been made that you didn't actually make, or mistakes in the sense that there are outdated addresses and things like that in the report. You want to look for things that really don't match up with your own credit history so that you can have those things corrected. Again, once a year is probably enough time to do this and you are entitled to a free credit report each year from each of the three credit reporting bureaus. So, in other words, you could actually request three reports over the course of the year. And every four months or so you could get an update on what your credit report looks like and check for any mistakes.
How can I correct errors to my credit report?
If there is an error in your credit report you need to immediately get back to the credit reporting agency that has the error. You can either do this online, but I would also recommend using the 8-number and doing it in person, or at least by voice over the phone. You can file a written report saying why something is in error, and they are required to correct an error within a certain amount of time if you report it to them. So it's important that you do that either online or by phone, but preferably both ways.
