Contents Of Free Credit Report

It is essential to keep your credit report in good health, as it reflects all your financial transactions of the past 12 months. You should read and understand your credit report to identify the problem areas. Consumers can get a free credit report through Equifax, Experian and TransUnion – the three major credit agencies, annually. You can place your order for your free credit report online at AnnualCreditReport.com, by phone or through certified mail. Your free credit report will be delivered to you at your mailing address in a fortnight.

It is necessary to review your free credit report as there maybe erroneous or missing information. If you review all the three reports simultaneously, you may find that the information is present in one but missing in the other two. Given below are the contents of your free credit report that you must review carefully.   

  1. Personal Information - Equifax and TransUnion begin their free credit report with this section. As the name suggests, this section contains all your personal details such as your name, contact number, employment details, social security number, past and current residential addresses, et al.
  1. Accounts - This section of your free credit report has details of all your expenditure and hence it must be carefully reviewed to locate errors. Equifax provides the most comprehensive report of all the financial transactions as compared to the other two bureaus. It has details of open and closed accounts, skipped payment, good and bad accounts, mortgage accounts, negative and positive accounts and details of installment and revolving loans. These details are not available in the reports provided by TransUnion and Experian.
  1. Inquiries - Your credit score is affected by hard inquiries that are caused when companies review your credit file. Such inquires cannot be made without your written permission and if you find any unauthorized inquiry, you may ask credit agency for the details of the company and can get it removed.
  1. Collections – Your failure to pay debts for too long leads to the debt being handed over to a collection agency. This is one of the worst things affecting your credit score.
  1. Public Records: In addition to the above, these bureaus also keep a track of lawsuits and judgments, bankruptcies, et al. 
  1. Statements: This section gives you space to justify the reason for delay in making payments or the incorrect information in the reports, if any.

At the end of the report you may find the contact details of each of these agencies. If there is any discrepancy in the report, then you can get the same corrected. You will be provided with a free credit report when it is corrected.