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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
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 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.
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