What Should Be In A Credit Report – Use This Info To Boost Your Credit Score

Author: Julian Hooks

Regardless of where you decide to order your credit score and report you should make sure you’re getting as much information as humanly possible. Credit reports are not the easiest thing in the world to read and understand. When you are researching companies try to find out how much information they provide and whether they show things such as graphs and have explanations of certain financial terms that the average person might not be familiar with. There is no point in ordering a credit report if you don’t understand anything that’s in it.

Another important point is to make sure you’re getting not only a credit report but your score as well. These things are not the same and they frequently make him separately. Thousands of people every day order a report expecting to see a number with it and that is just not the case. So make sure you see the words “credit score” or else chances are it is not included. Sometimes they offer a free report but in order to get your score you may have to pay a little, don’t be cheap when it comes to something as important as improving your credit. Trust me you’ll make your money back and lower interest rates soon enough.

The average credit report has pretty much all the financial information on a person as can be found.

Personal and contact information such as your name and former names as well as your address should head your report. Past addresses your Social Security number, employers and your birthday are also included in the report.

Information about your credit of course will be in the report as well. Things such as your current and past loans, type of loans and credit that are currently extended in your name. Credit that you may have cosigned for should also appear in your file. Which is one reason that you should only cosigned for people that are either family or close to it. More information that is attached to the loans are things like credit limits, balances, payment history, and lender names.

Payment history is an area you want to spend plenty of time reviewing, because this is usually where people mess up and have late payments that greatly affect their credit score. This is also the area where lenders make the most mistakes when reporting to the credit agencies. If you happen to spot late payments that you know have been reported mistakenly contact your lender and the credit bureau as as possible by phone and in writing to state your claim. Make sure to keep a copy of the written letter and date it was sent.

Public record information is also recorded on your credit report. This includes bankruptcies, tax implications, child support payments that have gone on paid, and collection agency situations. A couple more subjects are foreclosures, defaulted loans, and civil lawsuits. These things greatly affect your credit score, and you should make sure every bit of information is 100% accurate.

The fourth section will include information about which companies have requested to look at your credit report. Every time your credit report is requested is called an inquiry. Every inquiry except if it is initiated by you takes a small toll on your credit score. That is why it is important not to apply for loan after loan because every request not sure score down some.

So when you get your credit report make sure you understand all the terms and scrutinize all of the information to make sure it is accurate. Believe it or not the majority of credit reports have errors in them. Most of them are innocent enough caused by human error. In more extreme cases these errors are caused by identity theft criminals and if that’s the case being proactive is the only way to combat those situations.

The first step in taking command of your credit and your life is to find out where you stand. How’s your credit score? 0-600 Poor, 601-680 Fair, 700-774 Good, 775+ Excellent. Find out your score now! There are no excuses since you can get a Free Credit Score!

See your Credit Score for $0 at CreditReportViewer.com. It’s Free and available in seconds.

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