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Credit
Bureaus
A
tri-merged credit report (or three bureau credit report)
can be helpful for many reasons, including being the start to
correcting problems on a credit report.
There
used to be five major credit reporting agencies, but now they've
consolidated into three, and they are: Experian,
Equifax, and TransUnion.
Each of them has their own information about your credit. Starting
off, to get a good credit report, you can get a tri-merged report
representing information from these three.
Fortunately,
you can get a three bureau credit report for around $24,
and this will tell you all you need to know about your credit.
Many institutions that grant credit or similar services will need
to know your three bureau credit report before they will approve
of you, and so knowing your credit record beforehand can
give you a heads up on your chances of receiving these kinds of
services.
For
example most likely, a home loan will be denied if you have a
bad credit score. Same with insurance, credit cards with low interest
rates, or sometimes even a lease on a home and car. Knowing your
3 credit report can be a helpful shortcut to save you time applying
to these services, in case it becomes apparent that you won't
be approved.
An
additional benefit to knowing your three bureau credit report
score is that it can show you if someone has been cheating you
or stealing your identity. For example, if someone has been getting
accounts in your name and not telling you or not paying them,
they'll show up on your three bureau credit report as a bad score.
This will let you take the appropriate legal action to
get these items removed from your record and to get the person
who did it. There's more information about what to do about identity
theft at the end of this report.
Removing
fraudulent charges off of your three bureau credit report score
can become a major hassle. Once a friend had serious charges on
his credit report because someone was filing for a cellphone using
his name, and the cell phone company would not believe it was
not him, even though it was a different residence. To get them
to believe it, he had to produce several pieces of identity and
mail, as well as show home title to show where he was living.
They would not believe that his address was what he said it was
until he showed them lots of proof. And even then, he had to send
a certified letter to the cell phone company, and other agencies
that regulate these credit issues. It was a major hassle.
Knowing
your credit allows you many ways to improve your credit
score. As mentioned in information on this website, one thing
to do is to have a credit card and regularly pay off your payments
to show that you are reliable and can be trusted with credit.
If you regularly pay off your balance, and are on time with gas,
phone, electric, and utility bills, this also can help. Making
on time payments will be worth it for you to keep your credit
good, because it means you qualify for better interest rates,
bigger lines of credit, and all kinds of other financial benefits
that you wouldn't be able to get otherwise.
Here's
information about each of the three major credit bureaus:
Equifax
at www.equifax.com Equifax
offers services and products to protect against identity theft,
to manage and check credit, and to prepare for a major purchase.
Equifax also provides tools for checking the value of a property,
credit ranking, and the latest in business solutions (for B2B,
B2C, and direct marketing, for example) and news …featuring such
valuable articles as “Small Businesses Beware: ‘Rip Me Off’ is
Written all over You;” “Yo Say You Can Smell Phish in Your In-box?”
“Credit Union Thwarts Phishers and Reveals How;” and “Websites
Let Users Send Email to Future.”
TO
CALL
For general concerns, call 1-800-685-1111
TO
REPORT FRAUD
Call 1-800-525-6285
TO
WRITE
Equifax
PO Box 740241
Atlanta, GA 30374
Experian
at www.experian.com Experian
also offers products and services to protect against fraud, to
check 3-credit bureau reports, to check vehicle history (with
a report), and to get further educated—understanding your credit
and heeding customer alerts (such as those on Experian’s Katrina
victims help pages and how to beware of phishing).
TO
CALL
For general concerns, or to report or investigate fraud, call
1-888-397-3742
TO
WRITE
Experian
PO Box 2002
Allen, TX 75013
TransUnion
at www.transunion.com
TransUnion offers products and support services for credit
monitoring, provides fraud-prevention education and help, and
free credit card report disclosures. As well, you can subscribe
to the newsletter, to stay updated and get helpful credit tips;
can find much information on preventing fraud or resuscitating
your credit if you have been a victim of fraud; and can dispute
credit card items you suspect or know to be false.
TO
CALL
For general concerns, call 1-800-888-4213
TO
REPORT FRAUD
Call 1-800-680-7289
TO
WRITE
TransUnion
PO Box 2000
Chester, PA 19022
If
you need to, use all three major credit bureaus, then, for help
or support…or use one, as each of these three offers a combined,
tri-merged report.
For
identity theft, the first thing to do is to call your local
police department. With the prevalence of identity theft lately,
most police departments take this crime seriously and you can
file a report, as with other types of crimes. Many times, the
officer that takes down your information and files the report,
will also offer valuable suggestions as to who else to
contact. If you do file an identity theft report, be sure to get
the police officer's name and badge number (which
is usually standard for them to provide you). That way,
if you have to call a creditor about the identity theft problem,
you can refer that credit to the officer that took the
report, and it gives you an added level of verification.
We
also added information and tips about Identity
Theft Prevention. You may find the information as a helpful
resource and we even found a good video about spotting phishing
emails. You can see it by clicking on this link, identity
theft.
Based
on all the applications I've seen, just knowing where to get your
credit report and what to do to remove incorrect information,
this information alone puts you ahead of about 95% of the applicants
that apply for a loan.
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(c) 2006, Access Loan & Credit Data
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