Credit Report help

[Karaya One]

Any of you ever take a look at your credit report? How often?

Tammy and I have paid off a bunch of debt this year, and we always get approved for what we want but I am curious what's on that thing.

Should you look once a year? Twice? HOW?

Do the freecreditreport.com thing?

Does inquiring about your report cause a flag or such?

Any info appreciated!

[R7]

I've seen mine once per year for the past 4 years but only because of the house build/refinance process.

There's a lot of info on them, or there was mine anyways.
All accounts open and closed in the past X number of years.
Who closed the accounts that were not active.
Balances on all accounts.
Credit limits on all accounts.
Any late or missed payments.
Inquary into your credit.
I'm sure there's more that i'm forgetting?

If you plan to refinance, don't check into your credit score. Everytime someone looks into your credit, it lowers your score a little bit.
Also having to many open accounts, even with no balances caqn lower your score quite a bit

[NobodySpecific]

Annualcreditreport allows you to access all three of your credit reports once a year for free with absolutely NO strings attached. If you get one every four months you can keep a keen eye on things all for free. Freecreditreport.com is a business and only wants your money and will rope you into a monthly credit monitoring service in return for your credit report and score. I see it as completely unnecessary.

If you plan to refinance, don't check into your credit score. Everytime someone looks into your credit, it lowers your score a little bit.

That's only true if the person pulling your reports/score is a potential creditor. You checking your report is a "soft pull" and will only be visible to you and will not harm your score in any way. I know this because Credit Karma allows me to perform a soft pull pretty much whenever I want, and doing that once a month for over a year has had absolutely ZERO affect on my score, which I again confirmed when I bought my house and applied for a bike loan. Let me find another source for that info as well. Edit: here

[Ray-Ray]

Ok, here we go:

I look my credit report on a monthly basis. Only because I am subscribed to freecreditreport.com for $7.95/month. The thing most people don't realize is that FCR.com is an experian ran credit reporting company. Just like truecredit is ran by transunion and I believe equifax uses equifax complete? I honestly wouldn't even bother with any other companies. Each credit reporting bureau has their own and offer pretty great rates. Each company offers some sort of 3-in-1 credit monitoring or reporting. On that note. I like FCR.com because they give me up to date monitoring every month, they notify me every time my score goes up or down, and any time my report is accessed. As far as accessing your report....You can access and look at your report any time you as many times as you want without any flags being raised (as long as you entered correct info and answered the security questions right) It is considered a "soft" inquiry, not a "hard" inquiry, like you would as if you were applying for a loan or CC. It is reccomended that you check it on a monthly basis and I do, but to be completely honest, I obsess over my credit report and probably check it more than i really need to. So I'm sure every couple months or 6 months is fine....But I would def say twice a year. People are getting smarter and more desperate and would do anything to take someone's identity that has good credit. The only gripe I have with the credit reporting companies is that Each one of the 3 major credit bureau's reporting agency reports their scores higher than the others.

Example
Let's say you have the EXACT same CC's and loans on every bureau. SAME EVERYTHING!
If you inquire your report on each bureau, it will be slightly higher than the other.

ex:2

Experian 3-in-1 score

EXperian-780
equifax- 775
transunion-776


equifax credit report
equifax- 780
experian-776
transunion- 777

transunion credit report
transuinion- 780
experian- 777
equifaz- 776


get it? pretty much each company favors itself?



that being said If you were REALLY serious about checking your real credit that lenders use to decide about approvals, check your fico score! FICO stands for Fair Isaac Company, the company that created--and computes--this credit score. Although other companies also compute credit scores, FICO is the most trusted, and most used, score.
This is what matters most, not your "plus score" or "advantage score" just FICO..... I hope i helped...Im saying all of this by experience only.. but I would say I'm pretty credit savvy... Lemme know if you have any question... I might have just confused you more!

[Lxpony]

So what is your score Ray?

[Awesome]

www.annualcreditreport.com

[Palm Bomb]

you should monitor your credit report at least a few times a year and especially when things are changing for you (good, bad or indifferent).

I had an AT&T wireless bill (actually, my sister did in my name) that was outstanding for like 87 dollars. I never knew about it until it went delinquent because they were calling my sister, not me. when they finally called me, I paid it. over a year later, it showed up on my credit report because it had been farmed out to some collection agency before i paid it, then re-sold to another, and another etc. having free credit report .com made it real easy to dispute and get it wiped off. just clicked the dispute button and mailed documentation to them...voila it was off in a couple weeks and my credit score readjusted...hasn't popped up since because they don't let the company put resolved debts/disputes be put back on your CR by another company.

you should also use a service that monitors all three because, in the example above, they only reported it to equifax. you'd miss it if you only had trans union or experian.

and yes, i let the sister have it for that one...80 something bucks wound up being like 140 with fees etc.

[wylee]

I'd recommend checking it for accuracy once a year using the annualcreditreport.com website. If you find any errors, I'd recommend either asking the creditor to correct it or go directly credit bureau.

If you're concerned with your credit score, get you FICO score. The only place to get your FICO score is www.myfico.com.

[Ray-Ray]

So what is your score Ray?

Somewhere bewtween non-ya and business??

[Quigs]

I'd recommend checking it for accuracy once a year using the annualcreditreport.com website. If you find any errors, I'd recommend either asking the creditor to correct it or go directly credit bureau.

If you're concerned with your credit score, get you FICO score. The only place to get your FICO score is www.myfico.com.

I use creditexpert.com, and have for the last ~5 years. It gives you your Exp/Equi/Trans information like the rest of the sites linked above. It's important to note that those 3 scores (And these sites in general) are good for keeping an eye on your credit, knowing where you stand and giving you a ROUGH idea of what your score is.

If you're applying for a loan, the only score that really matters is the one from myFICO. You may be a 750+ on one of the credit monitoring sites in all 3 of the lesser bureaus, but you'll usually be a bit lower in FICO regardless, and that's what lenders use to determine your rates.

The monitoring sites are awesome for keeping an eye on things though. You can soft-inquire 50 times a day if you want and it won't effect your score at all.

I'm a bit of a credit nazi, and have helped a bunch of my buddies with their credit (one of them was below 500, ugh), so if you have any questions (even if they seem silly) I've probably already asked them myself, so fire away.

[The Snowman]

I would advise monitoring often. I took a look a month before I bought the Ridgeline and found that Experian was reporting my home address as a address I had an AMEX business card sent to 15 YEARS AGO!

Not sure why. It wasn't like that 3 months prior to that. And that one thing dropped my score 30 points. Luckily, I was able to dispute and get it fixed.

The other thing is that they're slow to report paid off notes. I had paid off my CBR1000RR loan a few months back and it still showed as a current loan a month ago. So, I disputed all 3 and they fixed them.

[VTRumble]

www.annualcreditreport.com

+1 on this, they link you directly to each reporting agency. MA residents get 1 free per year from each. I spread mine out between them so I get one free every 4 months.

[The Snowman]

If you're applying for a loan, the only score that really matters is the one from myFICO. You may be a 750+ on one of the credit monitoring sites in all 3 of the lesser bureaus, but you'll usually be a bit lower in FICO regardless, and that's what lenders use to determine your rates.

This isn't always true. I had a candid conversation with the finance guy at the Honda dealership I worked with and he said that they look at TransUnion and Experian and usually use Experian, since it's generally higher.

One thing I did notice was that the numbers I received from freescore.com were slightly off from what the HOnda dealership said they received. The freescore.com scores were lower, in one case, by 20 points.

[NobodySpecific]

I can also attest that my bank cared more about my individual scores and reports than they did the FICO score. In fact, they gave me a copy of all three reports with the scores, but nothing with my FICO score.

[wylee]

This isn't always true. I had a candid conversation with the finance guy at the Honda dealership I worked with and he said that they look at TransUnion and Experian and usually use Experian, since it's generally higher.

One thing I did notice was that the numbers I received from freescore.com were slightly off from what the HOnda dealership said they received. The freescore.com scores were lower, in one case, by 20 points.

You're confusing the scoring model with the credit bureau. FICO is a scoring model; Fair Isaac doesn't provide credit reports.

Transunion, Equifax, and Experian all will provide a FICO score. They may have their own scoring model, but most lenders don't buy it.

Even the score from myFICO.com doesn't tell the whole story but it is the most accurate representation available to a consumer. There are a few versions of a FICO score. Auto dealers are likely to pull a FICO score weighted towards your auto loan history, and a mortgage broker will likely pull a FICo score weighted towards your real estate loan history.

[Karaya One]

Thanks to everyone who replied for direction here! I now know what to do and where to go.

Dave

[Palm Bomb]

The other thing is that they're slow to report paid off notes. I had paid off my CBR1000RR loan a few months back and it still showed as a current loan a month ago. So, I disputed all 3 and they fixed them.

this is another very good point. I paid my truck off almost a year ago (2.5 years ahead of schedule!). The account still shows open but a zero balance. I haven't "disputed it" because it shouldn't be affecting my debt/income ratio but it's still annoying it shows as open when it's actually closed.