Let's discuss Credit reports

[amberbamber]

I am getting ready to pull my credit report and my husbands.

How would you go about assessing everything on it? If there are duplicates how do I get them removed? Discuss, please!

[amberbamber]

If my report says "this account will fall off in 2015" and it was opened in 1999...can't I request that it be taken off NOW?

Also- my credit score is 826- I'd like to make it higher.

I have 40 reporting accounts...with about 6 of those actually open. I have about 10 of the accounts saying they'll fall off between 2010-2015...again if they're already over 7 years can I take them off and will this improve my credit? That would then make it only 30 reporting accounts-

any thoughts?

[shizane101]

You will want to make sure everything is accurate. When you pull your credit, you will see a list of all active and inactive accounts. Make sure the active accounts are being recorded properly. If it shows lates on your credit card for instance and you are positive you made all your payments on time, call the credit card company and ask them to contact the credit bureau to fix it. Same goes for duplicate info. Call the company that is reporting duplicate information. Also, if you have open accounts that you no longer use, I'd suggest you close them. The more open accounts you have, the bigger the problem if you are ever a victim of identity theft. Besides that, it's just good housekeeping.

I'd suggest you get your report from the official goverment website: www.annualcreditreport.com

[TheTexan]

That is ironic. I just got off the phone with Citi due to a late fee that shouldnt have been. Somehow, Thanksgiving messed up the processing of the payment even though it was automatic. But woo hoo, another one paid off and in the shredder.

[bjl584]

826 is excellent. I wouldn't worry too much about making it higher unless it is a personal goal. There is no real advantage to having a credit score about the high 700's or so. Banks and other lending institutions will only give you favorable financing to a certain point. After that, it makes no difference anymore.

[sweeps]

I agree, 826 is a fantastic score. IMHO, it's not worth trying to increase your score beyond that... you could accidentally lower your score by tweaking the wrong thing in your credit report.

[InDebtInDC]

I respectfully disagree with the two previous posters. You should investigate and correct errors regardless of your credit score.

https://www.annualcreditreport.com

There are many companies that will sell you your own credit report. Some may offer credit monitoring services as well. I cannot comment on those.

Regardless of where you get your credit report from, there are 3 bureaus that maintain your report. See link above.

You may want to print out your report and read it very carefully. Circle/highlight anything you find inaccurate. Anything at all.

Identify which of the three bureaus provided the inaccurate information. If more than one reported the error make a note of that as well.

What you want to do is contact the original creditor that reported the error, as well as the bureau(s) that maintain the error. Most of the time the creditor will correct it for you and mail you a letter. I would follow up and make sure that the bureaus gets the correction.

You can usually find the creditor's contact information on the report itself. If not try Google and see if you can find a customer service number.

The 3 credit bureaus' contact information is usually listed on the credit report itself, or you can find them on Google as well.

Typically it takes a really long time to correct errors so be aware.

Other than correcting errors on your credit report, I do not suggest trying to tweak your credit score.

[pennrj430]

The 826 is most likely not a FICO score. It may be a private score by one of the credit reporting companies. Unless it was pulled by a broker, or loan officer. Or if you purchased it from MYFICO.com.

[Snodog]

The 826 is most likely not a FICO score. It may be a private score by one of the credit reporting companies. Unless it was pulled by a broker, or loan officer. Or if you purchased it from MYFICO.com.

Why? I've heard of fico's that high and higher. In fact my fico score that I purchased from MYFICO.com is 823.

[pennrj430]

Hi Snodog, that is my point. You pulled your score through MYFICO. I'm not sure if Amber did. If she just bought it from one of the 3 credit agencies, it won't be a FICO. It would just be a score from there own private scoring system.

[couponclipper]

credit cards that are pre-approved but not by you

Hello! I'm new here and have a bit of a different problem - but still relating to credit reports. Recently, (and I won't say which credit card but it starts with a 'C') I was sent a letter which informed me that I had been pre-approved for a credit card and if I didn't want it - all I had to do was close the account. This mortified me because I never filled out any paperwork asking for the account in the first place.

When I complained to the credit reporting agencies - they sent back a notice that I had a right within a certain amount of days to file a complaint (which I ALREADY SENT A LETTER) but they also put 'fraud alert' on MY account and not the credit card pushers.

Abu Dhabi now holds a great share of this particular bank/credit card company and I've been wondering (*yes I do that a lot) if they have some scheme/scam in mind to just go around wrecking people's credit reports at random whim. We have/had a good one. I don't know why, because of their breaking what I thought were credit laws - in that we never filled out paperwork asking for this credit card - why WE have 'fraud alert' now on our report.

HAS THIS HAPPENED TO ANYONE ELSE? To have a credit card account opened (but fantasized opening and closing date - and no legitimate provable charges. How do they get away with this? And, how can they suddenly have access at ALL to our credit report in the first place? Couponclipper