Consumer Credit Reports – equifax experian score

Hector Milla asked:




Collection accounts are usually seriously past due accounts that have been transferred to an attorney or a collection agency. These collection accounts can remain on your credit report for seven years from the date of the first missed payment. These collections accounts have a negative impact on your credit report and will hurt your chances of getting a loan or additional credit.

A study released by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group found that 79% of consumer credit reports contained an error or mistake. It is possible that you may have a collection account on your credit score by mistake. Checking your report from the credit bureaus on a regular basis is one of the best things you can do for your financial health. If you spot a collection account that appears to be listed on your report in error, you need to dispute it immediately. If the credit bureau cannot prove or verify the collection account, it will be removed from your file. You can challenge any negative item on your report at any time; if the item cannot be verified in a specified amount of time, it will be deleted.

If a collection item on your credit report is valid, you can attempt to negotiate with the creditor. If the amount is small and you have the available funds, the best thing to do is to pay the full amount. If the amount is large, you can trying paying a percentage of the total and see if the collection agency will accept this to settle the account. If you debts are excessive, you may need to look for the services of a debt settlement company.

If you decide to utilize the services of a debt settlement company, make certain to do your due diligence on any company you are considering. You should check to see if they are accredited by the Association of Settlement Companies (TASC). Find out all costs and fees before entering into any agreement with a company as they can often be more than some people can afford. You need to realize that once you begin a debt settlement program, your credit score will most likely go down before it improves. Checking the Better Business Bureau to see if there are any complaints against a particular business is also advisable. If there are complaints you should take a few moments to see if they were resolved in a manner satisfactory to the consumer. Following these steps will help you make an informed choice before starting the debt settlement process to fix your credit report.

Excessive debt is a problem for millions of people today. If you are worried about your credit score, your initial task should be to obtain copies of your credit reports. Write to Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion, or try freecreditreport.com, credit report.com, or freecreditreport360.com to obtain copies of your credit report. Knowing what appears on your this report is essential to staying financially healthy in today’s world.

Shawn

Wendy Polisi asked:




Although most people are not aware of it, by federal law all Americans have the right to add a consumer statement to their credit reports. The basic idea is to provide additional information or context to people reviewing your credit report. Most institutions base their decisions solely on your credit score, but providing an explanation or the context for negative entries may influence the person reviewing your credit report to take this additional information into account.

Consumer statements are most commonly used to explain factors in the credit report that negatively impact it, especially late payments, defaults, and disputes. If you were laid off from your job, found yourself physically incapacitated, or had some other problem that resulted in a series of late payments or defaults; including this information in your credit report can help to explain the negative entries. Similarly, if you were in a dispute with a company and refused to pay and this was added to your credit report, a consumer statement can help explain why you refused to pay the amount owed.

Consumer statements have also been employed by people that have fallen victim to identity theft. Including a statement in your credit report explaining the situation and requesting that no credit accounts be opened in your name without verbal or in-person authorization can help prevent further fraud. The consumer statement can also indicate that some of the debts on your record were the result of identity theft and that the cleanup process is currently underway. Removing fraudulent debts can be time consuming, often taking months, so a consumer statement pointing this out might be a good temporary measure to take until the process is complete.

Adding a consumer statement can be a helpful device for explaining your current credit score, especially among landlords and other non-institutional people that review your credit report. However, it should be noted that many experts say that adding a consumer statement may, in of itself, negatively impact your credit score. Therefore, this method should not be employed unless efforts to remove negative entries have already failed and you lack alternative options. Generally speaking, it is not always the best decision.

If you decide that adding a statement is appropriate for you, all you have to do is send a letter to each credit reporting agency requesting that your one paragraph consumer statement be inserted into your report. Be sure to make reference to “section 611(b) of the Fair Credit Reporting Act” as this is the legal basis of your right to add such a statement to your report. Also request a copy of your credit report be sent to you once the statement has been added, just to confirm that your statement is there and correct.

Grace

Steve Austin asked:




A consumer credit report is a factual record of an individual’s credit payment history. It is provided for a purpose permitted by law: to help a credit grantor or lender quickly and objectively decide whether to grant you credit. Most of the information in consumer credit reports comes directly from the companies a person does business with, but some information also comes from public records.

Credit reporting can be helpful in extreme cases, but it is often misrepresented by collection agencies trying to sell their services. When a collection agency reports a delinquent account to a credit bureau, it does not get the business any money today. What is does is provides a ‘wish’ for a payment some unknown time in the future if the debtor ever has to do a financial transaction that involves a creditor that checks their consumer credit report.

The issue is that credit reporting also can create a liability for businesses because of collection agencies reporting accounts that were not valid debts. This can open the business to legal action – something no businesses needs. It has been esitmated that over 41% of the information contained in consumer credit reports is not accurate, and with identity theft on the rise, a business must tread lightly when considering credit reporting.

The Fair Credit Reporting Act regulates the activities of credit reporting agencies. A credit reporting agency under this law means any person or business which assembles or evaluates consumer credit information for the purpose of providing consumer credit reports to third parties.

According to consumer credit report laws, here are some items that cannot be mentioned in consumer credit reports:

A discharge or final order in Bankruptcy Court dated more than 10 years prior to the date of the consumer credit report.
Lawsuits and judgments entered more than 7 years prior to the date of the consumer credit report.

Paid tax liens which, from the date of payment, precede the report by more than 7 years.

Accounts placed for collection or charged to profit and loss by the creditor that are dated more than 7 years before the credit report.

Records of arrest, indictment, or conviction of crime that, from date of disposition, release, or parole, precede the report by more than 7 years.
Any other adverse information that precedes the report by more than 7 years.

Default information concerning U.S. Government insured or guaranteed student loans can be reported for 7 years after actions to collect the debt have been taken against certain guarantors.

There are three major credit bureaus: Equifax, Experian, Trans Union. Federal law specifies how long negative information can remains on a person’s credit report. This includes late payments, accounts that the credit grantor turned over to a collection agency and judgments filed against a person in court – even if later the account was paid.

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Contacting The Credit Bureaus

Equifax

Equifax Credit Information Services, Inc

P.O. Box 740241

Atlanta, GA 30374

To order report: 1-800-685-1111

To report fraud: 1-800-525-6285

Web site: http://www.equifax.com

Experian (formerly TRW)

National Consumer Assistance Center

PO Box 2002

Allen, TX 75013

To order report: 1-888-397-3742

To report fraud: 1-888-397-3742

Web site: http://www.experian.com

TransUnion LLC

Consumer Disclosure Center

P.O. Box 1000

Chester, PA 19022

To order report: 1-800-888-4213

To report fraud: 1-800-916-8800

Web site: http://www.transunion.com

Grace

Albie DiBenedetto asked:




Reviewing your credit report may have confirmed your fears. Although you can’t erase all of the bad information, there are some steps you can take to make the situation better.

1. Correct any errors on your report: It’s common to find that there is incorrect information in your credit report. You have the legal right to dispute and correct this information, and you should. You can send a written dispute to each credit reporting agency that has reported inaccurate information. By law, they must investigate the entry, correct any mistakes, and respond to you within 30 days. Afterward, you should obtain another copy of your credit report to confirm the corrections. Then, you should also send the results of the investigation to the other credit reporting agencies.

2. Get help from your creditors: Filing a dispute with the credit reporting agency can delete unverified information about debt, but not if the creditor insists that you owe them money and verifies that fact with the agency. Now, you have to convince your creditor that there is an error. Supply whatever proof you may have to your creditor. If it’s insufficient, then you may have to agree to pay part or all of the debt, immediately or in installments. If so, be sure to get written confirmation of the agreement, and that the negative information will be deleted. Find out if the creditor will contact the agency to make the correction, or if they will just not verify the information when contacted by the agency.

3. Remove student loan defaults: If student loan defaults are hurting your credit, take steps to remove them. If you qualify for certain loan discharges, then the fact that you were ever in default of a student loan can be deleted from your record. You can also rehabilitate or consolidate a defaulted student loan so that you’re no longer delinquent. For more information about resolving defaulted student loans, visit the National Consumer Law Center’s Student Loan Borrower Assistance Project at http://www.studentloanborrowerassistance.org. The US Department of Education also has some helpful online resources at http://www.ed.gov.

4. Clean up public record information: Information in your public record can sometimes be the most damaging. This includes arrests, convictions, judgments, foreclosures, tax takings, and liens. The best way to remove such information is to start at the source – with the government agency providing the information to the credit bureau. For instance, you might come to an agreement with your creditor to remove a default judgment against you if you enter into a repayment plan. The court will remove the default, you can dispute the information in your report, and the credit bureau will have to remove it.

5. Delete old information: Most bad information has to be removed from your report after a certain number of years.

After 7 years

• Accounts sent for collection or charged off.
• Lawsuits and judgments.
• Paid tax liens.
• Most criminal records.

After 10 years

• Bankruptcies.

Forever (may be reported indefinitely)

• Criminal convictions.
• Positive information.

6. Explain damaging information: You can send a statement to the credit bureaus explaining damaging items. Now, they are not required to include the statement in your report, but they might agree to do so. For example, if you were sick and unable to work, and your creditor agreed to postpone your payments, then the bureau must include a statement as such. Keep your statement short. You can also explain your delinquency to your lender directly. Federal law requires that creditors at least consider your explanation.

7. Avoid overreacting to threats: Creditors may threaten to report negative information to the credit bureaus, but this is just meant to pressure you to pay. In reality, that information is automatically reported every month no matter what. If the threat is coming from a collection agency, the threat is even less likely to make a difference. That information is also automatic. Furthermore, these threats are probably illegal under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. You can sue the collection agency under that statute. This law does not apply if a creditor itself is making the threats.

8. Avoid credit repair agencies: Avoid companies that promise to fix your credit report for a fee. These agencies usually cannot deliver on their promises. You can do a better job yourself by following the tips above, and finding other resources to help you.

Rafael

Jon Living asked:




Credit education plays an important role in your life that will affect the purchases you make and much more. The more credit educated you get the more insight you will have about credit; the easier it is to strengthen your credit score. For more than a decade consumer credit education has enhanced many America’s financial well being, by helping them grow and obtain their financial goals.

There are three credit reporting agencies in the United States: Experian, Equifax and TransUnion. A credit reporting agency gathers financial information from various creditors and supplies a FICO score that is calculated by a mathematical formula, it also provides data on individual consumers spending habits and financial security. Each consumer FICO reporting agency has its own formulas for calculating credit scores.

Companies such as lenders and creditors that supply your credit information to consumer reporting agencies have to follow specific FICO reporting rules and laws that protect you the consumer, as listed under the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act. The act stipulates who can obtain a copy of your credit report and in what circumstances, it also stipulated how a credit lender can lend.

Your personal consumer FICO report contains details about your financial behavior and identification information. The three FICO reporting agencies collect and organize data about your credit history from your creditor’s and public records. They make your FICO reports available to current and prospective creditors, employers and others as permitted and regulated by the law, which may speed up your ability to get credit. Getting a copy of your FICO report makes it easy for you to understand what lenders see when they obtained a copy of your FICO history.

The most important part in basic consumer credit education is to understand that creditors forward information to the credit reporting agencies monthly, the day of the month that each individual creditor sends updates varies. This is why it’s important to have access to your credit report every day; you need to arm yourself with the basics of consumer credit reporting education and how it can benefit your financial credibility.

Your FICO report represents a history of your credit accounts and financial credibility, that history begins with the original account and its payment history. If an account is sent to a collection agency, the account continues with that agency that then owns the account until they collect the debt or sell it. The original account will show that it became late on a certain date, eventually was charged off after one hundred and twenty days of delinquency, eventually charged off and considered as a loss and then was sold or sent to a collection agency. The status of the account entry will change through its life on your FICO report. The most important thing when trying to understand your credit is credit education and how enhancing it can help your credit and ability to secure your financial freedom.

Vicki

Hector Milla asked:




The federal government is currently offering all consumers the option of obtaining a free credit report once every year. This free credit report allows consumers the chance to become aware of their credit history, possible identity thefts, and areas to improve in, once every twelve months. While this is a great resource for all consumers, many will find that viewing only one credit report per year does not give consumers ample information to stay up-to-date on their financial standing.

Three Reasons Why Receiving One Credit Report A Year Is Simply Not Enough:

1. While receiving one free credit report a year is better than never viewing one’s report at all, it is almost impossible to improve one’s financial standing without viewing more than one credit report per year. Most people should consider using this free report as a starting point in repairing their financial history. Even those that have a good score may still benefit from making a few simple changes. This free report may be used to view any negative aspects in one’s financial history, whether those may be a debt in collections or credit cards that are nearing their limit. Once the negative factors influencing one’s score has been determined, one can then begin to work towards fixing any imperfections.

2. A person that regularly checks their report is at a much reduced risk of becoming a victim of identity theft. While those that regularly check their credit report may also become victims of identity theft, they are at a much greater advantage of catching a theft early and rectifying the situation before it spirals out of control. A great deal of damage can be done to one’s financial standing within the span of a year. In fact, someone that has a good score can easily find themselves with several fraudulent credit cards and/or loans that total thousands of dollars. However, someone that frequently checks their report will be able to spot a fraudulent debt and notify the proper authorities before their situation becomes dire.

3. People that frequently check their report tend to be more financially responsible. In terms of financial standing, ignorance is not bliss. Ignorance, many times, leads to one not being aware of how their debts, occasional late payments, and credit cards are truly affecting their financial history and credibility. As most people would agree, it is much easier to be aware of one’s standing and make efforts to improve their score over time, than to find yourself in a difficult situation when attempting to obtain a home or other important loan.

Arnold

Karen R. Miller asked:




Every American citizen has a right to a free credit report under the Equifax FCRA. This was established by the federal government to standardize a way in which people were evaluated for their credit worthiness.

Credit worthiness of a person is therefore determined by a credit score, which is included as part of the Equifax FCRA credit report. FCRA stands for Fair Credit Reporting Act, a federal law enacted by the government.

What is a Equifax FCRA credit report?

Equifax is an institution that is widely recognized for their credit reports. A report from Equifax is a legal document with which you can negotiate various financial matters. Equifax is recognized and authorized by the FCRA.

An Equifax credit score report will tell you where your credit ratings stand with a scale of anywhere between 280 and 850. 280 is the worst possible credit rating you can have while 850 is the best you can have.

What do the credit ratings given out by Equifax FCRA credit report mean?

The score that is awarded to you will basically summarize your financial standing. It is estimated that the average American credit rating was about 692 in the year 2009. If your credit score is lower than this number, it would mean that you have less credit worthiness than the average American. This would mean that you will sometimes see your loan applications being denied and incur higher interest rates and payment terms.

Although most financial institutions will not completely deny you of a loan, they will make it harder for you to repay by imposing higher interest rates and fees if you have low credit worthiness. If your credit score is about average or similar to many other Americans, you will get terms and conditions that are considered normal or average in the financial industry.

If your credit ratings are better than average, you will get a great loan at a prime rate. Prime rate is when you get the best possible interest rate on a loan.

How do you go about getting a Equifax FCRA credit report?

Getting a credit report from Equifax is a fairly simple procedure. Ordering your report online is the simplest way to access it. All you have to do is enter your personal information such as name, address, social security number and so on to get a report instantly.

An Equifax FCRA credit report will also allow you to analyze your financial standing. The report will give you many details apart from your credit score. You will be able to see which financial transactions in your past are the reason for your poor, good or average credit ratings. You will also be able to check for any fraudulent transactions that may have been entered into without your knowledge. In cases such as this, you will be able to file a dispute directly online and get your credit score reassessed.

Equifax FCRA advises that consumers check their credit report at least once a year. This is definitely good practice as it will allow you to gauge your financial status and undoubtedly save thousands of dollars annually in lower insurance premiums and monthly payments. You will be in a much better position to negotiate terms such as interest rates on car loans, mortgages, personal loans, business loans etc by knowing your Equifax FCRA credit score.

Carol

Hector Milla asked:




Knowing the status of your credit report is very important since it lets you know when you need to do something about your credit financial status. Keeping track of your credit can be done by virtue of the credit reporting companies and agencies. The reports on credit offered are designed to give the correct information on one’s credit. The reports by the three reporting bureaus Equifax, TransUnion and Experian, analyze and highly evaluate your credit status and then gives you a complete report on the history and the credit scores.

A great advantage that administering the consumer credit card will do is ensure that you are protected against identity theft. Identity theft is a crime that is on the rise and unsuspecting people are falling prey to this criminal act. There are people who do not monitor their credits assuming that they are well and intact. Identity theft happens to anyone and it can leave you in debt in a matter of hours. Once you have lost your credit identity the fault can be stopped in time before more damage is done.

Credit scores on one’s credit are very important. When getting the services from a credit reporting company you will be able to see and monitor your scores every month to see if you are making any progress. If you are facing debt and your credit is bad, the services of the crediting companies will advice you on the best ways to repair your credit and how fast to do it.

Credit consumers largely rely on their credits to get lends from financial institutions such as the banks. A bank will only lend you a loan if you have made a point of checking the 3 credits from the bureau. With the credit card there are errors that may occur without your knowledge. These mistakes can only be detected and changed through monitoring your credit information. When paying the balances on credit in time you will stay guaranteed of a good score. To get the best advantages choose a good and reputable company, there are many credit lending companies that you can locate online.

Marion

Marqus Smith asked:




The consumer credit report is described as a factual document that profiles a person’s history of credit payment. It is a document that is being asked for in many places nowadays. As from before, you can never quite get a bank loan without having your consumer-credit report checked. Some employers, too, express an interest in seeing your consumer credit-report, before considering putting you on their staff. There are even some landlords who won’t rent you a house without a look at your credit report, just as there are some people in other areas of business who will be very hesitant to do business with you before they can have a look at your consumer credit repayment history.

Seeing how much impact your consumer credit-report is likely to have in your life, it only makes sense for you to ensure that you protect it, guarding it against any sort of damage. And looking at people who have truly messed up consumer-credit reports and their life stories, it is not hard to see the kind of things that can really mess with yours – the kind of things you should really avoid.

One thing that can really mess with your consumer credit-report is indiscriminate credit card usage. It gets a bit scary when some of us don’t actually see the credit card as a line of credit extended to us (and therefore don’t feel the need to repay it in good time). If one knows that, for sure, they are given to financial irresponsibility, it may be worth rethinking the whole idea of taking a credit card altogether. Contrary to an amazing public belief that has come up recently, one doesn’t actually need a credit card to prove that they are human, especially if they know that they will end up falling back on repayments.

The second thing that can really mess up with your consumer-credit report is regular failure to settle (day to day utility) bills on time. Many of us imagine that loss of access to the various utilities is the worst that can come of failure to settle day to day utility bills. In fact, such failure can have other more chronic effects, as most credit bureaus (the guys who make consumer credit reports) also look at people’s utility bill payment patterns.

Falling too far behind in student loan repayment is another thing that easily messes up people’s consumer credit reports a great deal. It can never be emphasized enough that the money you are lent to finance your college education is not free money. It is money that you have to repay. And in case you prove unwilling to do so (even where you haven’t gotten a job), the lenders alert the credit bureaus- soiling your consumer-credit-report.

Abuse of credit facilities available can, naturally, do your consumer credit report a lot of harm. Taking up every loan that comes your way, and especially borrowing – beyond your real repayment capacity – for consumption (rather than for development) purposes are the kind of things that could, in the fullness of time, irredeemably soil your consumer-credit-report.

Tracy

Krystle Chan asked:




Making a dent in their credit card debt is one way consumers may be able to improve their credit scores.

A recent report by the Federal Reserve Board indicated growing efforts to do just that, with revolving credit falling at an annual rate of 13.1 percent in February. This more than reversed the 2.1 percent growth in January, and contributed to a drop in such credit from $867 billion to $858 billion during that time frame.

What may appear as good news to consumers, may also represent their struggle against insurmountable credit card debt. The Fed’s report does not indicate the means by which revolving credit decreased in February. Paying off this debt is just one way it can drop over time. Charge-offs are another.

These write-offs are made on debts that are 180 days or more delinquent. At that point, many financial institutions will erase the loan from their books, while still holding consumers accountable for paying it off. Such actions can be severely damaging to one’s credit score.

Non-revolving credit decreased at a much slower rate in February. Debt tied to secure loans on boats, automobiles, college education and more fell by an annual rate of 1.6 percent that month, according to the report. This type of credit grew by 6.9 percent in January.

Combined, these shifts contributed to a 5.6 percent decrease in overall consumer credit at an annual rate.

Wells Fargo economic analyst Yasmine Kamaruddin commented on the report.

“I expect more declines, but smaller declines, as we progress throughout the recovery,” she told CNNMoney.com. “We’ll have to wait for employment prospects to improve and be sustained before consumers will feel confident enough to build up credit and purchase more.”

The unemployment rate has remained stable at 9.7 percent during the past three months, despite some 162,000 jobs being added to the national payroll in March. Temporary hires for the 2010 Census accounted for much of this boost, according to a report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, while the financial activities industry reported the greatest losses.

The long-term unemployed population also by 414,000 people in March. The longer these individuals are out of the workforce the more difficult it may be for them to remain current on their debt or maintain a strong credit score.

Judy