Your credit report has errors

According to a latest report from US Public Interest Research Group, 25 percent of consumers have errors on their credit reports and these mistakes can be serious enough for a lender to decide not to give credit. Now a days getting credit is becoming harder and harder. So it is advices to get a copy of credit report and check them carefully to make sure that your credit report does not have errors.

You can get a free copy of your free credit report from annualcreditreport.com and if your credit report contains errors you can report your credit report inaccuracies online.

And under the current Fair Credit Reporting Act, credit reporting agencies have to correct the errors once they are informed about them.

Where to get your credit report

All of us spend their money during the holiday shopping season. And this is also prime time of activities for identity thieves. So it is important for all of us to stay updated with your latest credit reports.

There are many online websites that offer you free credit reports. Most of these sites provide you credit report services after signing up there for a 30 day trial membership. Once that trail period is over, they start changing you for their services.

You have the option to cancer your membership at any time. But some people find it really hard to cancel their membership their.

Some of the credits reporting sites are owned by three big credit reporting agencies. So these companies make million of dollars per year for their services. You can get free copy of your free credit report once a year from www.annualcreditreport.com

Best and worst credit scores

The credit score range that most of the financial intuitions accept is between 300 and 850. Also, the organization that is considered to be the leader in accurate credit scoring, FICO (Fair Isaac Corp.) also uses the same range.

A good credit score lies in the range from 700 and higher and in fact known as an excellent credit score or Very Good credit score. Credit score from 680 to 699 will be considered as Good credit score. Credit score from 620 to 679 is just Average credit score. Credit score from 580 to 619 is Low credit score and a score from 500 to 580 is known as Poor credit score. And if you have a credit score in the range from 300 to 499, you have a Bad credit score or worst credit score.

Your credit score can change your life and can have big impact on your lifestyle. If you have the excellent credit score, you can do anything whatever you want – like buy a car, house, have more credit cards or get approved for any kind of loan you want. And if you have the worst or bad credit score, getting approved for a credit card will be nearly impossible.

Mostly people in US have credit scores in the range of 620 to 679. It is not the case that people with low credit score will not be approved for a loan, they will also more likely to be approved but with higher interest rates.

Best and worst credit score table

Starting Range	Ending Range	Credit score Ratings
700	850	Excellent credit
680	699	Good credit
620	679	Average credit
580	619	Low Credit
500	580	Poor Credit
300	499	Bad Credit

Thieves chilled by new credit report law

Recently seven people in US District Court in Hammond admitted their role in an identity theft plan that rang up $400,000 in unauthorized credit card purchases from 1998 to 2004. How they were able to do it?

They used to collect people personal data from a car rental desk at O'Hare International Airport and used that date to obtain credit cards by other people names. This show how easy identity theft can be.

But now a new Indiana law will frustrate thieves to use Hoosiers' good names and credit to rip them off. The law works on the concept:

It lets consumers freeze or block third party access to their credit report unless the consumers want to release them. So freezing of your credit report will stop criminals from obtaining credit by your name.

When you request for a freeze to your credit report to the credit reporting agencies, they will send you a unique PIN (personal identification number). This PIN will allow you to release the freeze on your credit report when you want to apply for credit. By Indiana law, placing a security freeze will not hurt your credit rating.

As Indiana Attorney General Steve Carter says, "I anticipate this will be a welcome tool for many people, and it gives Hoosiers an advantage in protecting themselves from financial and other fraud."

Complete instructions are available on their website www.aarp.org/in or consult the attorney general's Web site; www.IndianaConsumer.com

Fico Score – your credit rating system

FICO is the acronym for Fair Isaac Corporation which is a public traded corporation and is well known for creating best and widely used credit score system in United State. Fico score is a number that is calculated to know the credit worthiness of an individual based on many factors such as his bill payments history, outstanding debt and ability to pay.

As I mentioned Fico score is a numeric value and is calculated on the basis of your credit history collected from your credit report. Your Fico credit score change with new activities in your credit report.

Fico score is a kind of credit score that determines the likelihood that credit users will pay their bills. Your Fico score or credit score mostly called is used by various credit card providers and banks to decide your credit limit, rate of interest and even your paying period.

Credit check that does not harm your credit score

There are a lot of numbers that we have to keep track of in our life. But there is none significant as your credit score is. If you have a good credit rating, you will have better interest rates on your credit cards, loans and mortgages. And if the case is opposite i.e. you have a bad credit rating that can have big negative effect on many aspects of your life. So we must keep track of our current credit score where we are standing right now.

If we monitor our credit activities regularly, we will be in better position to remove and fix detrimental items. And when you have a good credit rating, you will have many financial benefits that will make your life really smooth. So the best and easiest way to keep track of your credit activities is going online.

There is a website gofreecredit.com where you can check your credit stats from all of three big credit bureaus. They are providing this service free of cost for the first 30 days to monitor any kind of activity related t your credit. If you check your credit score via gofreecredit.com will no negative impact on your credit score. And if you use other alternates to access your report, it is possible that 10 points will have been reduced from your credit score. So you can check your credit activities whenever you like without any worry with gofreecredit.com

Once the trial period of 30 days is completed, they will be changing $11.95 every month for their service. You have the option to cancer your membership within trail period or anytime you want there is no compulsion. Credit monitoring, automatic notification of credit activity and complete personal analysis are all incorporated in this service.

Most of the time people remain unaware about the negative activities within their credit reports. Most of the times they do not have the idea about the things that bring their score down. Bankruptcies, judgments, collections and past 30-days late payments are some of top factors that can have really big negative impact on your credit score. If you are able to improve your score, you will have more options about getting success with your finance.

Credit crunch negative impact on small and medium businesses

According to a latest report from CBI, more than one third of small and medium size companies are worried that current credit crunch will dry up the funding for their businesses. According to the report, 12 percent of companies have already witnessed the funds being chocked and another 22 percent expecting some problems over the next three months and another 33 percent companies expecting its effect in the next six to 12 months.

More severe lending conditions and higher rate of borrowing costs were seen as the signs of worsening. More serious doubts over new finance being refused and previous credit lines being closed off were less frequently cited.

And according to another survey that was carried out on 1860 UK working adults, two third of working adults have the view that credit crunch will have negative impact on Briton economy and 12 percent of them have the view that downturn due to credit crunch would be significant.

Freeze your credit report and say goodbye to crooks

Customers here in Arizona and 10 other states have been given access to a powerful tool that will stop identity theft with the rest of nation. But like other tools, this tool also has to use with lot of care.

All three major credit reporting bureaus decided earlier this month that all will be free to freeze their reports for a modest fee. Freezing of your credit files will not allow crooks opening an account by your name.

And if you want to temporarily lift a freeze on your credit report to refinance your mortgage, for a new insurance policy or for opening a new credit account, you can easily do that with a personal identification number being provided to you by all of three credit bureaus. Freezing of your credit files will block new account application and will not disturb any of your existing accounts.

Customers who keep track of their credit activities, destroy unnecessary personal document and take other precautions might not need this tool against identity theft. To apply for a freeze on your credit report, you have to give information like your name, address, Social Security number and other personal information and payment of $10.

How to dispute credit report inaccuracies online

The best way to increase your credit score is removing the negative elements from your credit report. So check your credit report for all kind of inaccuracies. Always check your personal information section in your free credit report.

This section contains the list of all addresses and employer you have worked for. Your inaccurate employer and address information will have negative impact on your credit score. Your address and employer information shows how much stable you appear to be. If your credit reports includes lots of addresses and employers list in the last year, that will lower your credit score. Check your report carefully for multiple listings of the same address and the addresses that does not belong to you anyway. So you will need to remove these inaccuracies from your credit report.

There are three ways by which you can report inaccuracies in your credit report via mail, phone and online. All of three credit reporting agencies have online forms you can fill up to file a dispute which looks to me the easiest way to solve credit report inaccuracies. Here I’m sharing the online form filling link of all credit reporting agencies for dispute about your credit report:

Equifax Online dispute form
Experian online dispute page
TransUnion credit reporting dispute

Some people will claim that you should dispute items even if they are completely accurate in hopes that the creditor will be unable (or unwilling) to verify the disputed item. I am advising you against this for a few reasons. Once the investigation about the inaccuracies is complete, you will be informed via email about the corrections in case you used the online form for reporting inaccuracies. And you will also get a free copy of your corrected credit report.

Note that if your inaccuracies are listed in all of your three credit reports, then you have to dispute it with all three credit agencies.

Freezing your credit report or not?

Now we have new tool available to protect our identity theft: ability to freeze our credit report. Freezing our credit report can help protect fraud victims. Now consumers have a strong weapon in the form of security freeze, where they will be able to keep theft away from obtaining a credit by our names.

When you freeze your credit report, you will be preventing creditors from checking your credit history that can be one of big drawbacks of freezing your credit report. There are some important things we all need to know before freezing our credit reports:

1. Security freeze is not same as fraud alert


2. You have to freeze your credit report from all three national credit bureaus – Experian, Equifax and TransUnion.


3. Credit reports are frozen at individual level. If you are married, you and your spouse have to separately request for freezing of your credit reports and have to pay fees separately.


4. Think before deciding whether to freeze your credit report or not. The credit bureaus take five business days to freeze your credit report and ten business days to send a confirmation letter with your personal id number and toll free number to lift the freeze on your credit report. You can ask credit bureaus to temporarily lift freeze on your credit report. The credit bureaus take three business days to lift the freeze temporarily. So keep all these things in mind before requesting for the freezing of your credit report.


5. Freezing credit report is not going to affect your credit score any way. But it will stop you from getting instant credit. Although you will have access to your free credit report that you can obtain every 12 months through annualcreditreport.com


6. Freezing of your credit report will not prevent existing creditors from accessing your credit report and will also not affect your ability to use your credit accounts.


7. Security freeze is not the ultimate solution against identity theft.

Best ways to improve your credit score

More and more people knowing the importance of credit score. Credit score are not just used for getting credit. They can have effect on many factors like interest rate, car insurance rates and you being hired by your employer or not. The Federal Reserve Board has provided some tips for the consumers to improve their credit score:

• Get a copy of your credit report and go through the information available in your credit report


• Visit annualcreditreport.com for getting few copy of your credit report. As per federal laws, consumers can get a free copy of their credit report from all of three credit-reporting agencies every year.


• Consumer can call (877) 322-8228 or fill up the annual credit report request at ftv.gov/bcp and mail it to Annual Credit Report Request Service, PO Box 105281, Atlanta, GA 30348


• Do not forget to pay the bills on time


• Understand how credit score is calculated and what are the factors having effects on it.


• Whether the bills are paid on time. The level of outstanding debt and the amount of credit left.


• Length of consumer credit history


• Amount of credit being applied recently. Applying for too many credits have negative effect on your credit score


• The number and type of credit account you have also matters

To know more, check out Federal Trade Commission publication on credit scoring at ftc.gov/bcp

Top 10 things that credit report can do for you

Credit report is a valuable source of information that can help you in controlling your financial status. You know what credit report contains:

1. Credit report does not only contain information about your credit cards, loans and mortgages but it also includes anything that involves giving you credit, from your mobile phone account to a shopping catalogue.


2. Credit report gives you complete details about what you owe and the status of your credit agreements. This helps you keep track of any financial commitments by seeing all your borrowing in one place.


3. It contains information about the details about the organizations that have given you credit.


4. It keeps track of your credit applications. These stay on your report for 12 months, so you can quickly check that you aren't re-applying to a lender you've already considered who's rejected you.


5. It also shows if any lender has misunderstood your request for information as an application or has searched your report more than once in response by mistake.


6. Your credit report can help you protect against identity theft. If you don't recognize searches on your report, it may be the case that someone is applying for credit in your name. If you fear that you may be a victim of identity fraud, alert your lenders and the authorities immediately.


7. It keeps track of whether you are registered to vote at the existing address.


8. Keeps the list of all addresses where you have lives at so far.


9. It gives an overview of your repayment history over time. Your credit report tracks your repayment history for every credit account you have ever opened. It can act as a reminder that you had problems with a particular lender or account and shows which lenders are most likely to make you an offer in future.


10. It can be amended if you disagree with an entry. If there is an entry on your report that you do not agree with, you should be able to remove this provided you have the necessary proof.

Top 10 elements having negative effect on credit report

When you are working hard to get out of debt, we have to keep in mind some elements that can have negative impact on your credit score. It is always suggested to get your annual free credit report from all of three bureaus Equifax, Trans Union, and Experian.

1. Delinquencies (30-180 Days From Date Of Missed Payment) Remain for 7 years


2. Closed Accounts (No Longer Available, Negatives remain for 7 years, Positives remain for 10 years)


3. Collection Accounts (7 years from original delinquency Date


4. Charge Off Accounts (7 years from date of initial missed payment)


5. Bankruptcies *chapter 7, 11, 12 remain 10 years, Chapter 13 for 7 years)


6. Civil Judgements (7 years from filing date)


7. Tax Liens (cities, counties, states, federal government remain for 15 years, paid remain for 7 years)


8. Child Support Liens (remain for 7 years from filing date)


9. Lost Credit Cards (delinquent payments appear from date card was reported lost)


10. Credit Inquiries (remain for 2 years)

Negatives are eventually purged from your credit reports.

Which free credit report to get?

There has been lot of talks about getting free credit report. But we need to know what exactly a free credit report comes with. There are three types of credit reports being advertised out:

The first type of credit report is the credit report where you just get a credit report from just one of the three bureaus namely Equifax, Trans Union, and Experian. There is no logic getting credit report from one bureau only. There are three bureaus all of them report somewhat different information. We need to get credit report from all of three bureaus. This is called 3-1 credit report.

The second type of credit report is the 3-1 credit report with credit score. In this credit report, you will have all of three bureaus reporting your information with credit score from just one agency. This is better to some extent compared to the first credit report. But since there are three bureaus reporting about your credit, it would make sense to get score from all of them and not just from one agency.

The third type of credit report is the 3-1 credit report with scores from all 3 agencies. This is the best credit report because this is the report that lenders look at. Most of people getting a free copy of their credit report are not sure what they are actually getting. It is in our interest to get your credit report with all three bureaus and all three scores.

How to get free credit report without paying a single dime

It is true that we can get our credit reports free of cost. We do nt need to pay a single dime to anyone to get our credit report. Unfortunately, there are many people who do nt about it. They ultimately pay some money to their credit reports which they can get free of cost.

According to Federal law – The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), every American should be provided free copy of their credit reports whenever they request for it. You can simply get your credit report from all of three major credit reporting agencies. You can get your free credit report online – from your office or home depending upon your comfort.

If you need to know more about free credit reports, do a little search on the internet and study some free credit reports pages there. On the internet there are many articles sites and forums where you can know about free credit reports. With forums, you can participate in the discussion going on or you can ask your own questions about free credit reports or any related question.