Article by Roger Peter

This article will give you a bird’s eye view of what credit reports are and some important factors that you should be aware of.

What are credit reports?

To put it in simple words a credit report is a record of all your borrowing and repaying history. It has data related to all your financial transactions, loans taken, credit card usage, repayment history, late payments and bankruptcy to name a few. So checking your credit report can give anyone a complete idea of how well you manage your credit and if you are credit worthy. You can get more information about credit reports here.

What is the use of a credit report?

A credit report contains all information about your credit history. It can tell anyone if you are a responsible borrower or a reckless one. A good credit history is reflected in your report with a higher credit score and vise versa. The information on your credit report can be highly useful to lenders are other financial institutions who can refer the reports to ensure they are giving a loan to the right person. Generally lenders shy away from people having a poor credit score and they can give loans with lower interest rates to those with good scores. So in a way a credit report also acts as an external element forcing you to borrow responsibly.

Who records my credit history?

The recording part is done by three credit agencies namely Experian, Equifax and Transunion. Whenever you fill out an application for credit from a bank/financial institution the information is forwarded to all these three agencies. All these three agencies work individually and hence there are chances that your report will have slight differences with each agency.

What is a 3 in 1 credit report?

A 3 in 1 credit report is a reporting format that includes reports from all three credit agencies namely Experian, Equifax and Transunion. This is the best and simplest way to get access to all three credit reports in one shot rather than approaching and requesting reports from each agency separately. In addition to the ease of information access a 3 in 1 report is cheaper and saves you a lot of time as well.

How often should I check my reports?

You can check your reports once every year but to be on the safer side it is always better to have a credit monitoring firm monitor changes to the reports on a regular basis. This will ensure that you stay clear of credit fraud. A monitoring firm will intimate you against any major changes made to your credit report within 24 hours. This gives you a chance to check your credit report and ensure that those changes are valid and have not been made by unauthorized parties.

How can I check my reports?

The easiest way to do this is to apply online. But ensure that you are applying through a trusted source. You get access to one free credit report every year which you can get from annualcreditreports.com. This is the only place where you should apply to get your free credit repot

What if I have used my free credit report?

You get access to a free copy of your credit report every year which you can order from annualcreditreports.com. In-case you have used up your free credit report you can still get access to your credit reports through other agencies. You can either directly approach one of the credit agencies or apply through other companies that work for these agencies.

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