December 26, 2008
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News: What's in Your Credit Report?
We've already got a team busily working away against us with all kinds of negative stuff to add to our credit report stocking. Some of us may feel its time to straighten out the record. It's not a fun task but neither is it fun to have good things taken away from us like good credit card rates, over someone else's mistakes. We must remember that the primary purpose of credit reports is not to make us look good, but to warn credit card lenders and others that might want to study us from a risk standpoint. So, in most cases ‘less is better' when it comes to a credit card lender hoping to secure another good customer because they don't have to bother with extraneous stuff that sheds doubt where it shouldn't be.
The credit rating bureaus are fairly meticulous and tend to add everything to our reports that come their way without questioning much of it. Some call it ‘dirt' but, in reality, it's just more stuff to add in the report that just happens to be all negative. The parallel article series called Fixing Your Credit Report contains some tips in helping these good people to sort out the truth and stop inhibiting us from the good credit card deals. That one little credit card mishap that's been forgiven and erased from the records of the transgresee may still be lurking in the shadows of our reports because the forgiving entity has simply forgotten to inform the credit bureau to remove the black mark and so, there it remains.
The good news at the onset is that recent government regulations provide for us the entitlement of a free copy of our credit reports each year from each of the three leading national credit bureaus; TransUnion, Equifax and Experian. When your credit card application is denied for hazy reasons, you will likely find one of these three bureaus listed as part of the reason for your denial.