Before you begin shopping for credit repair, there are some things you can do yourself without the extra cost. 

Sometimes you find yourself in a situation where you are lost in the credit world and you don’t know where to begin. Credit reports are confusing and you may not even know how to access them. Once you do, you might not know how to interpret them. 

Reading through your credit reports may seem long and tedious and they have a lot of abbreviations. If you have a lot of accounts it can be frustrating, but these reports can give you a detailed break down of your payment history and habits. Which ultimately, will help you in the long run. 

To get started on checking your own credit you first you want to obtain your credit reports from Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. In GOOD NEWS, your credit reports are free every week from www.annualcreditreport.com   CLICK IT, GO! You will get all three reports from this one site. It’s that easy. You can download them, save them, print them and look them over later when you have time. Due to the pandemic they are free once a week until April 2022. Honestly, I think we can agree they should be free and available to us at all times considering it’s our information and it impacts our financial lives. It’s an ongoing argument. 

The first thing you should check on your reports is your personal information:

• Name

• Social Security Number

• Date of Birth

• Addresses

Next Look over your accounts 

• Loans

• Credit Cards

Next you will notice Inquires 

There are two 2 types: 

Hard Inquires: Impacts Credit Score - Usually occur when you apply for credit

Soft Inquires : Will not affect your score - Occur when you check your your own credit; you apply for a soft-pull pre-approval with a creditor; when one of your current creditors check your credit; and when credit card companies are offering promotional offers.

Suggestions: 

If you notice that something seems inaccurate on your reports, circle or highlight it. Do this on each report. Each report may not contain the same information. Different lenders may report to one bureau and not the others. Your credit score may differ on each of them. Different lenders may rely on a specific lender to determine your eligibility for credit. 

Things that cause inaccuracies:

• Identity Theft

• Mixed or Merged Credit Files

  • This can happen when your Social Security Number closely resembles someone else’s. It commonly happens when your name is also similar.

  • A common occurrence is between family members who share similar names and addresses.

  • Parents sometimes will pass down their names to their children and share the same address.

  • Twins often times share similarities in names, have the same date of birth, share an address growing up, and their social security number is usually one digit off (The matching system only matches and verifies 8 of the 9 digits)

  • When new citizens immigrate to the United States, they have a similar situation. They are given social security numbers that are one digit off. They usually keep their family name, sometimes the same name, and are new to the credit reporting system. They may not be familiar with checking their reports.

This is a start to figuring if your credit is being impacted by wrong information. You know your better than anyone. The next step is disputing the information

Look out for out next blog on the dispute process and the documents you need to make the process smooth. 

If you need help or have questions about checking your credit reports feel free to reach out. 

Our contact form can be found at : http://www.centolaw.com/contactus 

You can contact our legal assistant sheri at: sheri@centolaw.com or 317-804-1623  Feel feel to leave a voicemail or shoot a text message and we will get back to you immediately.