What is on Your Credit Report?

Although it may seem obvious, everyone's credit report is different. In fact, since most people have three different individual reports (Trans Union, Experian and Equifax are the main ones), each person can have three different scores.

Why is that? Each report is simply a collection of both good and bad reports (for lack of a better word) from each creditor. Often times, a creditor, let's us a credit card company for example, may report to Trans Union and Experian while another credit card company may report only to Trans Union and Equifax. This would give us three different reports with different scores for the same person. Hope that makes sense!

So that you can follow along, you may get a copy of your personal report at http://www.annualcreditreport.com/. You are allowed to get one copy from each of the three bureaus every 12 months.

So, what type of information shows up on a credit report? Information that help a lender verify who you are and what type of risk that you may present by offering you a loan. Some of the info, both good and bad, is as follows:

• Full name
• Current address
• Date of birth
• Social Security number
• Previous addresses
• Current and/or previous employers
• Credit Score (if purchased)
• Factors of why score is what it is currently (if purchased)
• Tradelines, both open and closed, with partial account numbers
• Date opened, date of last activity, date reported
• High credit (limit), current balance, account type (mortgage, auto, revolving) and terms (number of months to pay off)
• Amount past due, number of months reviewed and number of 30, 60, & 90+ day lates
• Status ( paying as agreed, 30 days late, charge-off, etc.)
• Bureaus which are reporting the tradeline
• Public records
• Inquiries from last 2 years

As you can see, there is a lot of information on them and it can become quite confusing.

Here are some examples of what is NOT on your credit report....

• Sex
• Religion
• Color
• Race
• Creed
• Sexual orientation
• Height and weight
• Hair or eye color
• Name of Doctor or treatment center for account in collections EXCEPT when you get your own personal report. Mortgage lenders and car dealers simply see "medical".

Hope this helps. I'll be posting more soon.

Scott

Scott Swinford is an Executive Consultant for the US Consumer Credit Restoration Association and a Certified Mortgage Planning Specialist in Northwest Indiana. If you have any questions, you can send email to scott@USCCRAonline.com.