WHY you NEED to check your credit reports

[J.Apple902]

Hello again everyone

I'm an entry level professional, just getting all my finances in order and want to relay some advice. I for the first time ever did the annualcreditreport.com stuff to find some issues on my credit. I have been dropping in credit for the last year or so but I thought it was due to other mistakes on my part. No. There was a ton of errored missed payments to a utility company, and an incorrect balance. I simply called the company, explained the issue, they were cool. I said okay, I'm going to contact TransUnion and file a dispute, and that was easy as pie over the phone.

Get your credit in order by refuting errors.

[timothygroom]

Yes, absolutely agree, you should be checking your own credit reports for signs of trouble. With so much information on so many people going back and forth between the credit reporting agencies and lenders, mistakes are sometimes made.

[GrimJack]

I am on ID Theft for an indefinite time - AHOD, (all hands on deck) everyone trained in ID Theft is on ID theft for the foreseeable future here in Seattle IRS. Some of the callers say when they had their tax return rejected because it was already filed, a quick look at their credit report showed activity within the last 6 months that was not theirs.

I help people through a really difficult time; credit reports are the third thing we tell them to do. I know this is a little off topic but there were over 350,000 cases of tax-related ID theft cases last year; this year, most of the fraudulent refunds do not go out but once a return is filed on an SS# it is locked.

[AccountantSalary]

Sorry you had to go through that. You can get your credit reports for free once a year from each reporting agency through this site:

https://www.annualcreditreport.com/cra/index.jsp

It's the only one that doesn't hound you with credit repair schemes and insurance. If you go through them online, you'll get your report immediately.

Check with just one agency once every four months. That way you can monitor your credit report year round.

[Collin1000]

Hello again everyone

I'm an entry level professional, just getting all my finances in order and want to relay some advice. I for the first time ever did the annualcreditreport.com stuff to find some issues on my credit. I have been dropping in credit for the last year or so but I thought it was due to other mistakes on my part. No. There was a ton of errored missed payments to a utility company, and an incorrect balance. I simply called the company, explained the issue, they were cool. I said okay, I'm going to contact TransUnion and file a dispute, and that was easy as pie over the phone.

Get your credit in order by refuting errors.

Had a situation somewhat like that as well.... checked my credit report for the first time ever when I was 18, and found out that I had defaulted on a loan 6 years earlier. I called them up and more or less said "Do you really think that a bank gave a 20k loan to a twelve year old?" and it got corrected and removed from my credit before it did any more damage.

[NetSkyBlue]

Thanks for the reminder to check mine - it's been a while.

I just saw on my TransUnion report that my student loans (paid off in January) still show a balance. It shows last paid date, doesn't say it's late or anything, just doesn't show a "date paid" or "date closed".

My Equifax shows balance of $0 and that it's paid off.

Is this a problem?