Reviewing Your Credit Report - And Making It a Habit
Reviewing and monitoring your credit reports regularly is a great way to track finances and safeguard yourself from fraud.
The details on your credit report summarize your credit management practices, enabling banks, businesses, and lenders to gauge if they can extend credit to you. Mistakes made on the report could hurt your approval rates for loans, credit cards, and more.
Generally, credit reports require diverse information, making it overwhelming to understand what to focus on. You will need a credit report for each major credit bureau like Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion. This is three times the amount of data you need to review.
You must also routinely review your credit reports from all three bureaus. Grab a free copy of your credit report annually from the FTC at annualcreditreport.com. After you get it, there are several things to look out for to check for errors.
What to Look for When You Review Your Credit Report
When reviewing your credit reports, check for changes in your personal information. It will include account details, inquiries, and public record data. Check for errors and suspicious information not coming from your end and dispute the error. Here are the common mistakes to look out for in a credit report.
Personal Information
Mistake in the name, address, or phone number
Multiple or incorrect birth dates
Inaccurate employment information
Wrong social security number
Accounts
Inaccurate credit limits and balances
Unrecognized credit accounts
Incorrect states of account, such as open accounts marked as open
Incorrect account holder such as being primary account holder but listed as an authorized user
Unknown utility, phone, and streaming accounts
Inquiries
Check for companies that extract credit information without consent. It could be a sign a fraudster applied to the account in your name.
Public Records
Foreclosures, bankruptcies, liens, judgments, and lawsuits you are not involved in
Double Check to Ensure Everything Is Correct
Regular review of your credit reports familiarizes you with your finances, guaranteeing consistency in information on your credit score. An excellent spot to investigate is your payment history. Complete the check and ensure that there are no payments marked late yet were made on time. Such errors will potentially decrease your credit score but will easily get remedied if you give proof you paid them on time.
Benefits of Monitoring Your Credit Report
Reviewing your credit report regularly ensures you are familiar with your finances and look for ways you can use to improve your score. It is common to miss payments without your knowledge. The review will show how often you have missed payments and correct it before it lowers your score.
A high balance on your credit card usually motivates the user to adjust their spending budget. As you raise your credit score, you increase your chances of qualifying for better financial products like loans and credit cards with competitive rewards and rates.
Another critical benefit of routinely checking your credit report is that you can take early action against fraud and dispute errors before they affect your finances. It will save you the hassle of dealing with bigger problems later.
Fixing your credit score is seamless. At National FCG, we want to help you rebuild and understand your credit. Get in touch with us today to learn more about what we can do for you.