Free Credit Reports

Author: John Willoughby

Author: John Willoughby

If you are shopping for a mortgage in the next few months, you should have a pretty good idea how your credit looks before you apply. The 3 national credit repositories, Trans Union, Equifax and Experian, are required to each offer one free credit report per year to everyone. If you are shopping for a mortgage in the next few months, you should have a pretty good idea how your credit looks before you apply. The 3 national credit repositories, Trans Union, Equifax and Experian, are required to each offer one free credit report per year to everyone. You can obtain that report by going to www.annualcreditreport.com. This one site will give you the option to go to each bureau individually and request your history. It won't have a score but it will show you if there have been any negative reports in the past. I recommend you obtain one report and if you find problems you may want to go ahead and get the history from the other two bureaus to see if they are all reporting the same problem. You will be able to challenge any negative history if you feel it is wrong. I do recommend you keep records of the file number, your user name and password back to that file in the event you need to go back into the same file on line to challenge any additional info. Usually the first portion of the report will show you any negative history. Review this info closely. If you know that the account is yours but it is not desplaying accurately, dispute the inaccuracy right there. If you find accounts that you don't believe are yours, dispute it right there. There is possibly a telephone number and source name associated with most reported accounts. You have nothing to lose to call them yourself and dispute it directly either. It is not uncommon to wait 3 to 4 weeks to responses back from the bureaus. They will go directly to the source of the disputed information and attempt to verify its accuracy. Whatever the response is back from that source will be the bureau's reply to you. Understand that the source of information pays the bureau to maintain their credit history on you. So their response will be "gospel". But, if for some reason that source does not respond back to them within 30 days of their request for information the bureau will assume your input is accurate and update it according. The frustrating part here is that if, later that source again reports the same negative information your history will be updated again showing the negative history. It is really important to you that you make sure that the source of information corrects their errors internally or your report will be eternally wrong. You can obtain that report by going to www.annualcreditreport.com. This one site will give you the option to go to each bureau individually and request your history. It won't have a score but it will show you if there have been any negative reports in the past. I recommend you obtain one report and if you find problems you may want to go ahead and get the history from the other two bureaus to see if they are all reporting the same problem. You will be able to challenge any negative history if you feel it is wrong. I do recommend you keep records of the file number, your user name and password back to that file in the event you need to go back into the same file on line to challenge any additional info. Usually the first portion of the report will show you any negative history. Review this info closely. If you know that the account is yours but it is not desplaying accurately, dispute the inaccuracy right there. If you find accounts that you don't believe are yours, dispute it right there. There is possibly a telephone number and source name associated with most reported accounts. You have nothing to lose to call them yourself and dispute it directly either. It is not uncommon to wait 3 to 4 weeks to responses back from the bureaus. They will go directly to the source of the disputed information and attempt to verify its accuracy. Whatever the response is back from that source will be the bureau's reply to you. Understand that the source of information pays the bureau to maintain their credit history on you. So their response will be "gospel". But, if for some reason that source does not respond back to them within 30 days of their request for information the bureau will assume your input is accurate and update it according. The frustrating part here is that if, later that source again reports the same negative information your history will be updated again showing the negative history. It is really important to you that you make sure that the source of information corrects their errors internally or your report will be eternally wrong. About the Author:

Mortgage Consultant for Mid America Mortgage Services of Kansas City, Inc. Full service mortgage lender for Missouri and Kansas since 1992.

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