Thursday, January 29, 2009

Apply To Check Your Credit Report And Improve Your Credit Score

By Jim Bransby

Your credit score has become the way in which many decisions about you will be made. Applying for credit cards, or for a car loan, will trigger a credit check and generate multiple credit scores, based upon which lender will make decisions about whether and how much to lend, and at what rate. Credit scoring is also used by potential employers, utility and service providers, and many others.

It is therefore incredibly important to improve your credit score. Different credit reporting and scoring companies use different methods to assemble credit scores, but the methods are similar enough that taking certain steps can improve each of your credit scores.

First of all, you need to know the players. There are three major credit reporting bureaus. Each of these has a file about you. Their files are built up over time by assembling the information that credit providers give the credit bureaus. Each time you obtain credit, it goes into your file; and then the credit provider gives the credit bureaus a record of your repayment of that credit.

A good example would be a car loan that must be repaid on the 5th of each month for 36 months. Over the first year, letas say that you make two payments on the 20th, while the rest were received on or before the 5th. The lender sends a report of your loan activity to each credit bureau. Each of these bureaus in turn uses a formula to compute a credit score for you, based upon that reported information.

The next step is applying to check your credit report. This is vital information a" think of it as your financial health record. There are many offers available on the internet through which you can apply to check your credit report and your credit score.

Once you have a credit report and a credit score, take a look at the information reported by your creditors. Make sure that the creditors that are reporting into your credit file are actually your accounts. If there are creditors listed on your report that you did not borrow from, you can improve your credit score by having these entries removed from your account.

Next, review the payment histories on your report for accuracy. If creditors are reporting incorrect late payments or not crediting payments that you have made, your can further improve your score by correcting this information. The credit score report will provide the addresses of the three credit bureaus. Simply follow the instructions to contact them and identify errors in your report.

Each credit bureau will individually look into errors. Sometimes you will need to communicate with the bureaus more than once to get things resolved, so it is important to keep a file of letters and responses. As you remove the incorrect late payments or other inaccuracies, your score can improve dramatically in a short time.

As it is so vital, apply to check your credit report as soon as possible, then continue to do so at least annually. The more you are aware of your financial health record, the more easily you can improve your credit score. Since credit scores are so commonly used today, improving yours will help you in many ways. - 16089

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