I cannot stress enough how important it is to get your free credit reports and, more importantly, to correct any mistakes
on them. I speak with customers all the time who have to be declined for loans due to their credit report.
And it's not just loan applications that are affected: bad credit can may cause one to be declined for a checking account
or debit card, may cause interest rate increases on existing credit cards, or even denials for a new job. What many
people don't realize is that even employers can check your credit history and if they see an irresponsibility in paying
ones creditors, they're afraid it will mean you might be an irresponsible employee.
Keep in mind:
1. It is not the reponsibility of the financial institution to double check or verify the information on your credit
report.
2. If you apply for a car loan and the loan officer pulls a credit report and it shows items that have gone
to collections, you will most likely be denied credit. Even if there are only one or two collections and these items
are in error/not your fault. It is your responsibilty to correct mistakes on your own report.
3. You cannot request copies of your credit report from your financial institution. Doesn't matter if you
just applied for credit and the loan officer has the credit report in their hands; they are not legally allowed to give you
a copy of the report. ALL credit reports must be ordered through the credit bureaus.
So, please, get your free report each year and ensure that all the information is accurate.
One Suggestion:
One suggestion that I have heard and I think is a pretty good idea is to get one credit report every 4 months; in essense
staggering your "free yearly credit report" to one every 4 months instead of 3 on the same day every year. So for instance,
you could get your Equifax report on January 1, your Transunion report on May 1, and your Experian report on September 1 instead
of a report from all three on January 1 of each year. This also makes it less painful to reconcile each report since
you wouldn't need to work on correcting 3 reports at once, but only one every 4 months (assuming, of course, that corrections
are necessary).
Testimonies:
I had a coworker who pulled her report only to find out that there were multiple mistakes on her credit reports that
traced back upwards of 5 years. I found a couple of mistakes on my reports as well (accounts that showed still being open
even though they were closed). So you never know what wrong information might be affecting the next auto loan, or even job,
you apply for.
