Free Annual Credit Report - 3 Reasons to obtain One
Every person in the US includes a credit history. For some people it is blank. They don't have a record yet of how they handle history. For many people it could fill a sizable amount of encyclopedias. Now the question becomes is your credit rating accurate?
The US government requires the major credit bureaus use a copy of your credit history for free once a year. That's the reason you will sometimes hear people discuss the free annual credit history.
It isn't just like your credit score though. You should realize that your credit score is still tough to determine as each company calculates them differently.
The three major credit agencies are Experian, Equifax and Transunion. Think about them as giant record keepers. They get reports from credit card issuers, automotive loans, home loans, and other areas. Not every company reports to all three. Many will only report your data to 1 or two of them.
There are three major causes to obtain a copy of the free annual credit history. We will discuss each of them in more detail below.
Inaccuracies
Identify Theft
Forgotten Lines of credit
Inaccuracies can riddle your credit score. The systems involved with collecting this post is not perfect. It's very possible that information is reported to the company incorrectly. For instance your credit card company can report that you had a card go into collections. It may happen from an employee mistyping information right into a computer program.
It is also entirely possible that another person's credit is being sent beneath your identity. I've got a friend whose name is the same as her sister in law. They share first and last names but have different middle names. When she visited obtain a loan on the home, these were very confused by her credit history. They lived in different states, had different jobs, and various financial histories. The credit bureaus had mixed them up in places.
It took some time to get everything corrected so she could purchase her home. Obtaining a copy will allow you to find these errors quickly and get them corrected.
Identify Theft is really a growing issue in the world. Obtaining a copy of your credit rating makes it possible for you to find out if a person has stolen your personal information. The credit bureaus will show any credit that is opened in your name. By checking it regularly you can prevent this. You can also request that they put a freeze in your credit. This prevents anyone from opening credit inside your name. Just remember to remove it when you get ready to apply for credit.
Forgotten credit lines might not appear to be a problem however they could be. It's not smart to have lines of credit floating around. I found a couple of store charge cards on my small are convinced that I'd completely forgotten about. I'd gotten them when I was much younger and establishing my credit.
I kept the credit lines but requested they be frozen. I did not want to take them off because they would impact my credit score. I also didn't wish to leave them scattered about just in case someone got the information and started with them.