Some people feel that their Credit Report and Score is just a mystery and that only creditors have access to this information.
And if you are depending on one of those financial institutions to give you a copy of your credit report and score when they retrieve it then you are right it will always be a mystery.
The truth is that you can check your credit report and score online and get the same information that a potential creditor is reviewing when they are trying to decide if they want to approve your credit application for that new car, new home, cell phone service or even insurance.
Why would you want to keep an eye on your FICO score and creditworthiness? Well there are a number of reasons:
You check your bank statement monthly to make sure that all transactions are correct and often times you will find that a posting mistake has happened.
Let me just say that it is faster to get an error on your bank statement corrected than it is to get an error in your credit file corrected.
If you should find an error you will need to write a dispute letter to the credit reporting agencies and provide adequate documentation in order to get them to investigate your dispute.
It will often take 30 to 90 days to get an error corrected.
So, don't wait until you want to finance a new purchase to start the correction process.
And if you are depending on one of those financial institutions to give you a copy of your credit report and score when they retrieve it then you are right it will always be a mystery.
The truth is that you can check your credit report and score online and get the same information that a potential creditor is reviewing when they are trying to decide if they want to approve your credit application for that new car, new home, cell phone service or even insurance.
Why would you want to keep an eye on your FICO score and creditworthiness? Well there are a number of reasons:
- To verify that there are no errors in what is being reported to the credit bureaus about you.
- To make sure that your current creditors are indeed reporting your credit activity so that your score will get the positive benefit of your on time payments.
- If you are working on improving your fico score then you want to see what impact your efforts are having toward your goal.
- If you are a co-signer with another person on a purchase and the other person is responsible for the payments, then you would want to know that they are indeed making the payments in a timely manner before it has a negative impact on your credit history.
- If you have disputed some items in your file then you would want to watch and make certain that these items are indeed being cleared up.
- To guard against identity theft.
Many identity theft occurrences are made by family or friends who have access to your social security number.
Don't wait until you need your creditworthiness to find out something like this. - If you have never seen a copy of your credit report or even know what your credit scores are, then this is certainly reason to retrieve this information.
You check your bank statement monthly to make sure that all transactions are correct and often times you will find that a posting mistake has happened.
Let me just say that it is faster to get an error on your bank statement corrected than it is to get an error in your credit file corrected.
If you should find an error you will need to write a dispute letter to the credit reporting agencies and provide adequate documentation in order to get them to investigate your dispute.
It will often take 30 to 90 days to get an error corrected.
So, don't wait until you want to finance a new purchase to start the correction process.