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Whenever a person applies for a loan of any sort – whether it is a mortgage, a personal loan, or even a credit card, their credit report is pulled and scrutinized. Everyone knows this. However, what isn’t as widely known is the mass amount of information available within these credit reports and histories.

There are three primary national credit bureaus in the United States. Each agency’s primary form of business is the reporting of credit information that will enable their clients to learn certain facts about a person or business’s credit history, which, in turn, allows their clients to make better overall business decisions. The “big 3″ in the United States are:

1. Experian, formerly known as TRW – http://www.experian.com
2. Equifax – http://www.equifax.com
3. Trans Union – http://www.transunion.com  

So, what information is on a credit report? Is it just data that pertains to an individual or to a business’s finances? Or is other information noted there as well? In fact, there is a very large amount of data collected and displayed in a credit report. The following is the information that may be found, in part or in total, on a credit reporting history from Experian, Equifax, or Trans Union: 

• Their total credit score. The score is made up of three individual parts. One-third is based on the subject’s payment history, one-third is based on their debt/credit ratio, and the final third is a compilation of the length of their credit history, their types of credit, and the amount of their recent credit inquiries. 

• Individual credit information. Credit history – including payments, lines of credit, secured loans, and any other type of debt the subject may have. The information here is detailed. The reports break down what the total amount of credit is per loan, what each balance is, as well as a detailed payment history. 

• Settlements, tax liens, and other judgments. If the subject has any tax liens or judgments brought against them, they may be listed as part of the report. Also, any bad debt settlements reached will be reported. 

• Bankruptcy. If bankruptcy is in the subject’s history, it will be noted, as well as if it was a Chapter Seven or a Chapter Thirteen bankruptcy. Also, if they are making payments to the creditors, it will show what their complete payment history is. 

• Arrest and conviction data. Basic data that will show an arrest or conviction information along with dates of arrest, conviction, etc.  

• Other legal information. Such as if the person or business has been sued by another individual or business, including the when and where. 

• Fraud reports. If there are any possible instances of fraud in place, the credit report will detail which accounts are thought to be compromised.  

• Address information. Shows the current as well as several past residences for the individual or business. 

• Employment history. Where the individual is currently working as well as their past employers and dates of employment.

Basically, the consumer files from these national agencies are vast and often include far more than basic credit worthiness. Local and/or regional credit reporting agencies may have even more in-depth, and more detailed, data on individuals and businesses in their local area.

Also, it is smart to be aware of what information is on your own credit report. This is extremely important for a variety of reasons, but mainly, to be sure your report is accurate. Though, if you have suspicions that someone else is using your identifying information to steal from you, in other words – identity theft, checking your credit report is an excellent way of deducing if your suspicions are correct or not.

However, there is another reason to know what types of data lurk in a credit report. If you’re investigating a person or a business, having access to their credit report can often give you exactly the data you’re looking for, in addition to the obvious financial history. Because of this, and the risk associated with it, the Federal Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) has amendments in place to protect credit reports from being illegally retrieved.

To obtain a credit report on someone other than yourself, you must have a “legitimate business need,” as well as, in most cases, a signed release. Some of these legitimate business reasons may include:

• Renting property, apartments, houses, etc. If you’re a landlord, retrieving credit information on possible tenants is within the parameters of the law as long as there is a signed release.
• Approving loans of any sort (from a mortgage to a credit card). This is fairly obvious. Any institution that loans money, in whatever form, has the legal right to request credit history information on their applicants.
• Employment verification. Many companies in the United States now have potential employees sign a credit report release as part of their pre-employment screening. This, along with general backgrounds checks, is quickly becoming the norm. 
• Collection proceedings for bad debt. If an individual, or business, has not paid a debt back, the lending institution may begin collection proceedings with or without a collection agency. Credit reports are almost always used in these proceedings.

Also, the FCRA mandates that procuring a credit report under false pretenses is a crime, which could lead to fines, jail time, and/or the relinquishment of a business license. 

So, what do you do if you are in need of a credit report other than your own, and you do not fall into one of these prior categories? Well, unfortunately, to actually retrieve an official credit report – there’s not a whole lot you can do. Even online information brokers need to be extremely careful that the users of their databases have a legitimate business purpose – which means you’d probably have to verify this to utilize their services.

However, there are other potential alternatives at your disposal for retrieving the information you want. The following are some examples of steps you can take, and the places you can go, to get the financial as well as the additional background you’re after:

• State or County Records – Every credit report is partially made up of information gathered from public records. Filings such as arrest and conviction records, tax liens, and bankruptcies can be retrieved from the correct locality in which the record is stored. These, most of the time, will be at the state or county level. Just check with the appropriate state to find out exactly where to go to retrieve the records you’re looking for. Also, online search agencies (information brokers) can also get this public record information for you through their public records databases.
• Dissemination of Information – Certain reporting agencies, such as Experian and Dunn & Bradstreet, can run a comprehensive credit check on businesses within their directory for their clients. This information is an overview of the specific information that is actually on the credit report and can give valuable data to branch off from. These condensed reports can offer data on tax liens, judgments, bankruptcies, business background reports, lawsuits, payment trend behavior, etc. Most of these types of reporting agencies offer a one time rate to retrieve the information you’re after. For consistent searches, they also offer a subscriber rate.
• Do Some Legwork – Check the appropriate locality’s register of deeds office to look into real-estate mortgage records, search the appropriate files at your local courthouse to investigate public record information, interview former coworkers, friends, and family members of the individual, etc. Be ready to talk to anyone you can and listen carefully. Write everything down and continue to connect the dots. While there is some information you’d find on a credit report you won’t discover in this fashion, you may find data that will lead you onto other avenues. If you spread your net wide enough, you should end up with a fairly accurate picture of the individual you’re investigating.
• Uniform Commercial Code Filings – The UCC allows a creditor to notify other creditors about a debtor’s assets that have been used as collateral for a secured transaction. The creditor does this by filing a public notice, or financing statement, with a particular filing office. You can search these filings by most states using online information brokers and other public record vendors. You can also do your own online search, if you’re motivated enough, by going to the appropriate state’s UCC database or by going to the state web site that offers free access to the UCC database. By doing a simple search online, you can find a plethora of information on UCC filings as well as possible information brokers to use, if you decide to go that route.

While credit reports and histories give the needed financial information a company or individual requires to determine credit worthiness on another, these reports can also include other data that will give a greater view of the subject in question. However, even if you don’t have the legal right to retrieve the official credit report of an individual or a business; don’t give up on your investigation. Remember, there are other ways to get the information you require. 

Your free credit report supplies you with all the necessary information you need to know about your personal credit history. You can request your credit report personally and receive the information online. Without much effort and a small amount of time, you can request a “free copy of my credit report” from an online service.

The website Annual Credit Report allows you, the consumer to review your free credit report once a year. If you do not have access to a computer, you can request a credit report by filling out the information available from the FTC and sending it to the address provided for Annual Credit Report.

The three top credit agencies that you receive a credit report from are Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. These credit-reporting agencies have all your personal information as well as your credit history and your credit score. All the reports come as one request per year. If you decide to ask each credit agency separately in writing for this information, without using Annual Credit Report services, you have to pay a fee for the credit report.

If you have received a denial on a loan or credit card, a job or an insurance policy, you can still receive a credit report free from the credit agencies without payment. This has been a ruling for years and this free service does not affect that option. Because your credit report is free, viewing it once a year prevents any problems down the road from fraudulent claims or identity theft as well.

Obtaining a free credit report online is done by visiting the website and checking “free copy of my credit report” then submitting your information. This is a free credit report without a credit card. Annual Credit Report does not charge to view your credit report like some sites. It is hassle free and quick with no payment needed, unless you request your credit score, which is a different type of credit history.

Since your credit report supplies creditors with information on your payment history, how much credit you have taken out and still have or have paid off, you want to stay on top of the credit report to catch any errors that may occur. The report also get creditors see how many times you applied for credit and been denied or approved. Because of this reporting process, you may find some applications that you never knew about.

Get your free credit report [http://www.creditscorereportguide.org/Credit_Repair_Agency/] today from Annual Credit Report and see what your credit history says about you and your finances. Do not get turned down for a loan or a job because you had no idea that your credit report stated something less than satisfactory.

The world today works largely on credit. It can buy you a home or a car, finance your expenses for college, marriage and get you loans. However, if misused, credit can be a devil in disguise and demolish you financially. It is therefore essential to manage credit wisely.

In order to obtain credit, you have to have your credit report reviewed by your lender. The credit report has a huge impact on your financial future, so it is critical to be aware of the information it contains.

A credit report is a summary of how you pay your bills, repay loans; how much credit you have available; what your monthly debts are; and other such matters that can help a prospective lender decide if you are a good credit risk. Credit monitoring is done by three major credit bureaus called Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. Additionally a credit report score called FICO is also maintained; credit scores are based on formulae that use the information in your report, but they’re not considered part of your credit report.

Employers, insurance agents and future creditors will all assess your credit report to get information about you. Since it is such an important document, the law provides you protection against incorrect information. Always ask for your free credit report copy which you can avail of once every year. The request for an online credit report can be done on the Internet as well.

If at any time you are denied credit, you must get a copy of the annual credit report to ensure the information is correct or not. You have the right to know which credit reporting agency has prepared the report. A free credit report has to be made available to you within 60 days of being denied credit.

If you find the information in the credit report erroneous, you are entitled to ask the credit reporting agency to investigate the claim within 30 business days. If you are not in consonance with the credit bureau’s investigation, you can file a brief explaining your point of view. This must be included in the credit report whenever it is sent out. The credit reporting agency is obligated to, under law, correct the information found erroneous.

Other than bankruptcy, any negative information older than seven years cannot be permitted to be entered in the credit report. Negative information may include late payments, bankruptcy, liens and accounts given to a collection agency. This does not necessarily preclude you from getting additional credit as different creditors review credit history in different ways.

It is important to constantly monitor credit reports so ensure that your creditworthiness is not at risk. Identity theft often poses a huge problem and can siphon you off of thousands of dollars if you are not careful. There are several ways for monitoring credit reports as well as credit scores.

• Credit Freezes – They limit access to the credit report which remains locked till such time that the consumer removes it.
• Fraud Alerts – They alert the lenders on thieves stealing the credit report. In the meanwhile the consumer can continue to obtain new credit.
• Credit Monitoring Services – This service provides online credit reports notifying you any significant changes occurring daily or weekly. It ensures quick notification of identity theft or ongoing fraudulent activities.
• Do-it-Yourself credit monitoring – You can obtain an annual credit report free of cost through annualreport.com.
• Bank credit monitoring services – Here the bank takes on the task of monitoring credit reports and notifies you of changes daily or weekly. It ensures quick awareness of any fraudulent activity or inaccuracies in your credit report as well.

Your credit report is available to you right now, you just have to reach out and grab it. The only thing that seems to me to hold people back is that they simply don’t know that the report is there for the taking, for free, right now. The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) is a Federal law which requires each of the Big 3 Major Credit Reporting Agencies to provide each and every American citizen with a free copy of your credit report, at your request. This law does not require you to have any reason other than curiosity to take a look at your report once every 12 months.

What keeps people from actually taking advantage of this terrific federal law? It seems that the only thing keeping them from clicking on the website or calling the phone number or even sending a simple letter in the mail is knowledge. No one seems to realize that these credit reports are available for free at any time, all it takes is a little initiative and filling out a simple form. The Federal Trade Commission or the nation’s consumer protection agency, is assigned the job of enforcing the FCRA and making sure these Consumer Reporting Companies don’t treat us consumers unfairly.

They are in charge of making sure to promote the privacy and accuracy of the information in the files of the Big 3 Credit Reporting Agencies. Your credit repot contains information on where you live, how your bills are paid and even arrest records. The Fair Credit Reporting Act was established to help protect this private information, making sure it does not fall into the wrong hands.

However, it seems that we are allowed to at least view our own information to verify it is accurate finally.The Major Credit Reporting Agencies were required by this law to establish a website, a toll free number and a mailing address with information and links to obtain these free credit reports. To order, you simply need to fill out a simple form and submit it in whichever form you desire. It is not possible to simply contact the consumer reporting companies and request it, you must go through the correct channels to get the report for free.

You may order your reports from each of the three nationwide consumer reporting companies at the same time, or you can order your report from each of the companies one at a time. The law allows you to order one free copy of your report from each of the nationwide consumer reporting companies every 12 months.

There is only one website out there that can actually help you to obtain the free copy of your report. However, many other sites are springing up claiming to offer a “free” credit report, but once you get down to the “fine print” it is easy to see that the “free” report is only good for a short time and in order to get the free report, you must subscribe to the site. It turns out that what these “imposter” sites are really offering you is simply a “trial period” after which you are charged on a monthly basis for these services and to still be able to view your report.

This “free” service suddenly converts to one you have to pay for after a trial period. If you don’t cancel during the trial period, you are agreeing to let the company start charging fees to your credit card. Why do you think they would ask for your credit card number anyway, if they weren’t intending to charge it.

In order to obtain your free credit reports, all three of them, from the site governed by federal law, you are not in any way shape or form required to enter any credit card information. Credit Report Repair can be done simply and by yourself with time and simple tools, you just need to know the right techniques. Obtaining your credit report is the first step to improving your credit score and fix your credit rating. Even the Federal Trade Commission has stated that “anything a credit repair company can do for you legally, you can do for yourself”.

Go out and get your credit report now and you can start improving your score and fixing your credit. Knowing your score and what is on your report can help you to take the first step and begin your credit repair. You simply need the right program to help you to repair your own credit and a good education about credit score repair.

Make sure you find the right one, with great feedback from its happy clients and a long term presence and you can be on your way to fixing your own score yourself using a simple book to get you there. Make sure you log on, pick up the phone or send out the mail and get your free credit report today and start raising your credit score.

We as consumers have the responsibility to make sure our credit report is accurate as our reports are used in many of our personal financial dealings. Taking a look at your credit report on on regular basis is the foundation for successful financial planning.

In addition to reviewing your credit report regularly, you must also know your FICO score. In fact, maintaining an accurate credit report is a part and parcel of good credit management, which can help to improve your FICO scores over time.

Most Folks Don’t Review Their Credit Report

The first time many people see their credit report is when they are about to buy a home or a car. However, the most opportune time to get your credit reports is long before you apply for any loan.

Long before applying for a mortgage you ought to make sure that the information contained in credit reports is accurate. The truth is that this information is essential and will have a significant impact on your ability to obtain certain loan packages.

Understanding credit reports is as vital to you, the consumer, as it is to the lending and financial institutions of the world. Understanding this information is one key to figuring out the loan process.

Reviewing Your Credit Report Can Guard Against Identity Theft Loss

In addition, checking your consumer credit report is one way to guard against credit fraud. In fact, obtaining your annual credit reports is vital to helping to protect your credit profile from identity theft. Monitoring your credit information is one of the most efficient ways to protect yourself from criminals who want to steal your identity.

Checking your credit reports is specially important if you believe you may be a victim of identity theft. Keeping informed is a wise step in preventing credit fraud. Even though it can take years to repair damage to your good credit, the stress can last many years longer.

Mistakes on Your Credit Report Can Cause Trouble

Mistakes on credit reports is a big problem, according to the US Government. A frequent mistake on credit reports is erroneous information, such as showing the incorrect number of late payments. Oftentimes, the info on credit reports is not complete or inaccurate. The number of people with mistakes on their credit reports is relatively high.

If you feel that you have erroneous info on your report, keep in mind that disputing your credit reports is your right under the law (see fair credit Reporting Act). Another frequent error found is showing an outstanding balance on a loan that has been completely paid in full. That’s the reason checking out your credit reports on a regular basis is extremely important.

Employers Look at Your Credit Report Too

One of the most controversial uses of credit reports is in employment and perhaps the most surprising use of credit reports is by potential employers. Some potential employers will use your credit history as a basis for their decision as to whether or not to hire you.

Another branch of business that uses credit reports is the insurance industry. Particular data from credit reports is used as one factor among many others that insurers use in whether or not to extend you insurance.

Have You Been Turned Down Because of Your Credit Report?

Another reason you want to review your credit report is if you have been turned down for credit and you are not sure why. Under these circumstances the 3 major credit bureaus (Equifax, Experian and Transunion) must by law provide you with a free credit report.

Also by law, under the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act, the Federal government requires the 3 major credit bureaus to, once a year, provide you with a free credit report … yes a free, no strings attached credit report.

Under this mandate, the 3 major credit bureaus put together a website to make this annual free credit report easy for you to get. You can get your free credit report at annualcreditreport.com

As you can see, having access to your credit report is critical. The 3-in-1 Credit Reports are the most inclusive picture of a consumer’s credit history, and include a brief glance summary of all account information. Sitting yourself down and reviewing all three credit reports on a regular basis is a must.

More and more people are becoming aware of their credit report, and how it affects them in their daily lives. As they apply for a home loan, credit card, or line of credit, they realize that credit scores can make a huge difference in the amount of interest they will pay. Some have even realized to their chagrin that past indiscretions and problems can come back to haunt them. Being turned down for a loan can be very painful and embarrassing.

If you are ready for an intelligent look into your credit situation, then you may want to take a long look at your own credit report. When you have acquired a transcript of your credit report, it is plainly in your interest to understand how to interpret it. There are loads of numbers and distinct accounts on one piece of paper, and you should strive to understand what you are looking at, and what it all means.

Three major credit-reporting agencies

There are three pre-eminent credit reporting agencies that are going to play a big role in your credit life. The “Big Three” are Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax. You should copy a transcript of your credit report from these three companies, at the very least, every 12 months. You can find out additional information about these companies online and they will guide you how to acquire a no cost credit report.

The large credit scoring companies have fee-based websites, where you can look at your credit score whenever you’d like, see how your credit score has changed over time, and see any inquiries that have happened. You can even sign up for alerts that will let you know if anything has changed with your credit score. This can be a big advantage if you are trying to increase your credit score to get better interest rates.

What is in these reports?

All credit reports have similar information in them. They will have your identifying information, such as residence address, social security number, drivers licence number and other items. Each credit company will have payment history, late payment information and balance owed. There will be information from the public record if any exists. There will also be any inquiries from credit companies in the last months.

The three major credit agencies’ reports will have distinct information in them. This is because each company has different credit companies that subscribe to them, and that is how they get their information. The credit card companies, mortgage companies, and banks all send credit information on each creditor on a monthly basis. The agencies then tabulate all the credit information they receive about you, and come up with a new credit score.

In addition to the Big Three, a company called Fair Issacs also keeps credit score information for it’s customers. They also compute what is known as a FICO Score. Fair Issacs is considered the “Father of Credit Scoring,” since they were the first to devise the credit score as a way to make lenders’ jobs easier.

The major parts of a credit report

A credit report is separated into four sections, identifying information, credit history, public records, and inquiries.

Identifying information

Your identifying information is the section that identifies who you are. There are maybe hundreds of people in the United States having an identical name (can you imagine how many John Smith’s there are?), but all people has a discrete social security number. The report should also confirm your driver’s license number, last known address, and unique phone number.

Credit history

The second section of your credit report is your credit history. Each individual’s account will have the name of the creditor and the creditor’s account number. You will want to make certain that these are authentic accounts that you maintain now or had at one period. If they are incorrect, you will be shown a way to contest them.

Public records

This is the section that obtains any report about your past criminal record. This will also contain any arrests or bad judgments that have been made against you. This is a section that is better off empty for obvious reasons.

The inquiries

The last part to a credit report is the inquiries. This is anyone who has seen a transcript of your credit report. Anytime that you apply for a loan, credit card or line of credit, some one can see your report and they will pull an inquiry report. This is a very complete report. It is not a good practice to show a lot of inquiries on your credit report.

Changing your credit report

If there is any part of your report that is in question, you will have a way to dispute or correct it. The dispute will be reviewed and the questionable information may be taken off your credit report. If it cannot be taken off of the report, you should have a way to add your own explanation of the situation to the report. This could help a potential lender understand the situation more fully.

I hope that this article has given you a basic understanding of what is in your credit report, and what you should look for when reading your credit report. To find the credit agencies, do an online search for their websites.

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Do a search for credit report repair or navigate through the forums that are popular with consumer advocates and credit repair specialists and you will likely find more than a few contributors who claim that fixing your credit reports is a simple process. All that is required, according to them, is that you get a copy of your credit reports, compose a dispute letter to the credit bureaus pleading your case, and 30 days later the offending items on your reports are gone. Your credit score is instantly better and you can make all of the purchases your heart desires.

Even more, they make it sound like credit report repair is so easy that any person or company who offers to help you repair your own credit must by trying to bilk you out of your hard earned money. After all, why would you pay someone to fix your credit when it is so easy to do it yourself? You might as well start paying people to tie your shoes in the morning and brush your teeth as well.

The truth is that credit report repair is not as easy as many people claim. If it were, would it really be necessary for Amazon to list hundreds of books about credit report repair? If credit repair were so easy, why would the federal government create legislation to preserve the integrity of the companies offering credit report repair services instead of just banning the practice altogether?

Why the Credit Bureaus Make Credit Repair Difficult

Understanding why credit repair is not easy and why the process has to be regulated takes a little understanding of the economics driving the bureaus; the main three of which are Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. To start with and contrary to what many people believe, credit bureaus are not government entities. They are for profit corporations that make money by collecting your personal information and selling it to interested parties. They are regulated by laws created to oversee credit reporting agencies but th agencies are not created as a result of legislation.

Being for profit means that the credit bureaus, like any other business, want to focus on the activities that make them money and streamline or do away with activities that do not generate revenue. This applies to credit report repair because the bureaus do not make any money off of repairing your credit reports. In truth, if it weren’t for the fact that they are required by law to investigate consumer disputes, the credit bureaus wouldn’t even bother with the practice in the first place. For the bureaus, credit report repair is a drain on resources with zero return on investment.

So as a consequence of their economics, the bureaus do not want to make it easy for you to repair your credit but even more than that, no one other than yourself wants you to remove errors from your credit report. You are not the primary client of the credit bureaus and until the bureaus began selling credit reports directly to consumers (a service that is only necessary because of credit report errors), the credit bureaus could not profit from you at all. It is the creditors that the credit bureaus traditionally profit from and these creditors also do not want you to repair your credit reports. And why is that? It’s because people with errors on their credit reports have lower credit scores; low credit scores that are not an accurate representation of who they are as a lender. This means that creditors can demand a higher interest rate and make more money from you even though you do not pose a credit risk equal to the risk that your bad credit score implies.

How the Credit Bureaus Make Credit Repair Difficult

Now that we know why the credit bureaus make credit repair difficult the question is how? The answer is by using the same laws that have been enacted to allow consumers to dispute negative items in their credit reports. Credit report legislation states that consumers are able to dispute any items on their credit reports that they feel are inaccurate, unverifiable, or misleading. These vaguely defined terms make it possible to dispute a lot of items on credit reports.

To counter the vague parameters provided to the individual consumers, the credit bureaus were also provided with even more abstract rules. According to the legislation, the bureaus are required to investigate consumer disputes unless they feel the disputes are “frivolous or irrelevant”, and they take full advantage of this leeway. The bureaus set up “gatekeepers” who accept all consumer disputes and decide which disputes warrant an investigation, and since these gatekeepers work for the credit bureaus, they are clearly biased towards their employers and against you. Getting past the gatekeepers becomes the largest hurdle in credit report repair and frequently devolves into a trial and error process of writing letters, waiting, fielding rejections or stall letters, and starting all over again.

Easy Credit Report Repair

Credit report repair can still be an easy process from your perspective; it just requires a simpler allocation of resources. Instead of spending resources in the form of time and effort, you can spend a little money to have an expert repair your credit for you. What’s more, just like when you pay professional installers to replace your carpeting instead of performing the process yourself, you will end up with a better finished product in less time.

Professional credit report repair is easy. It is simply a matter of getting your credit reports, providing them to a credit repair agency, selecting which items on your report you want to dispute, and letting them manage the process from there.

There are a number of quality credit report repair companies available with the leader in the credit repair industry being Lexington Law. Lexington operates as a fully licensed law firm and has been honing the craft of credit report repair for over 18 years.

Obtain a Free Credit Report and Check it for Errors

As a resident of the United States, the three main credit reporting companies in the country are required under law to provide one free credit report (each) to anyone who requests them within any given year. The three large credit reporting companies are Equifax, Experian and TransUnion, and they are strictly monitored by Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) to provide correct and true information.

Information from a person’s credit report provides companies, such as credit card companies, mortgage loaners, insurance companies, and potential employers, information on where a person currently lives, where a person has lived in the past several years, the person’s financial history – including any bankruptcies – and whether or not a person has been involved in any legal proceedings in the past.

Companies use this information to figure out what sort of risk a person is in terms of whether or not money should be lent or credit should be extended/offered to them. Because there is so much vital information included on a credit report, and it contains a good representation about a person’s ability to be responsible and trustworthy, it’s important for a person to monitor what is on his or her credit report, and ensure that everything on the report is correct and current.

The three main credit reporting companies in the United States all keep track of basically the same information. However, sometimes one credit agency will pick up and report slightly different information from the others. This is why it’s important to check the data on all three credit reports from all three companies on a yearly basis.

All of the reporting agencies have websites and toll-free telephone numbers which can be used to order free credit reports. If it seems time consuming to contact all three credit reporting agencies, there is a website (www.annualcreditreport.com) which will provide free credit reports from all three credit reporting companies with one single order. This prevents the need for contacting each reporting company individually.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) warns against seeing commercials on television that advertise free credit reports and acting upon them. The same sorts of advertisements are also located in numerous places on the internet, and they should be used only with extreme caution. Any website offering free copies of credit reports, besides http://www.annualcreditreport.com are usually out to make money. While they may offer free credit reports, they may try to charge users a fee for some sort of other credit reporting service.

In order to obtain free credit reports either from one individual or all three different credit reporting agencies, personal information is needed. Some of the data that must be available are a social security number, current and previous addresses, and other information that should (hopefully) only be known by the person whose name is on the report(s).

In today’s age of obtaining information instantly via the internet, receiving copies of credit reports is no exception. If correct information is submitted to http://www.annualcreditreport.com, the information on all three credit reports will almost instantly appear and be printable within seconds. On the other hand, if the credit reports are ordered via telephone, they may take a couple of weeks to arrive in the mail.

Once the credit reports are received, they should be thoroughly evaluated for any mistakes and inaccurate information. Any errors should be brought to the attention of the credit reporting company immediately. Under law, the credit reporting company must correct any and all mistakes, if there is proof that the mistakes and mis-information are legitimately incorrect. The agencies will work to determine if the errors are in need of correction and will usually make the changes on a credit report within a month.