Reviewing Your Credit Accounts and Public Records
The next important section in your credit report is your credit accounts. This includes accounts that you’ve opened, the date you opened them and whether or not the account is still open or closed. Other information that is included is usually the account number, the type of account, your credit limits, your balances and of course your payment history.
• When analyzing this section you should look for mistakes such as accounts that aren’t yours
• Negative comments about delinquencies that aren’t yours including charge offs and delinquencies
• Late payments, charge offs and other negative entries that are more than seven years old
• Debts that your spouse incurred before marriage (unless of course they improve your credit history!)
• Incorrect notations of any kind such as a debt showing up as past due when it was wiped out in a bankruptcy
Keep in find that if you find a great deal of wrong entries, especially if they are delinquent or unpaid accounts that you could be a victim of identity theft. If this is not the case then it might be likely that the credit bureau mixed up someone else’s information as yours. This often happens when two family members, such as a senior and junior for instance, share the same name.
Another thing you should note is any other errors such as accounts that you’ve long since closed and still reported as open or accounts that indicate inaccurately that you, rather than the creditor, closed the account. If a creditor closed the account it has more of a negative impact on your score as it looks like they got exasperated with you in some way – either as someone who would not use the product or as someone who rang up too much debt on the account.
Another thing that you should do is look for credit inquires that are older than two years. Inquiries show who has asked to review your credit report. The inquiries that affect your score the most are the ones from lenders that resulted for you applying for credit.
If you see any credit inquires on your record that are older than two years or that you didn’t authorize then you can add these to your list of items to dispute with the credit bureaus.
The third thing you will be examining is the Collections and Public Records section of your credit report. This includes any collection actions or public records including bankruptcies, foreclosures, garnishments, lawsuit judgments and tax liens.
When reviewing the Collections and Public Records section of your report you might also want to add the following things to your list of things to be asked to be removed from your credit report
• Bankruptcies that are older than ten years or that aren’t listed by the specific bankruptcy code. (Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 bankruptcies for example.)
• Lawsuits, judgments or paid tax liens that are older then seven years (as by law they can be retired from the report after seven years)
• Paid liens or judgments that are listed as unpaid as it does the truth about your situation a discredit.
• Duplicate collections such a loan that is listed under more than one collection agency. Sometimes an account you didn’t pay often is listed twice, once with the original lender and the other with the lender.