View a Credit Report and Understand It
Posted on February 8th, 2010
Getting your credit report for the first time, or even the 10th time can be fairly confusing, and I can understand. You’re going to find that there are so many terms that just aren’t going to make sense. In order to make things easier for you, I’ve wrote down a few terms that you’re going to see. Hopefully, by the time you’ve looked them over, you will find that it’s not as confusing as you thought it was!
First, you have to understand that you can only get your credit report from the three major credit bureaus. These bureaus will include Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax. If you want your free government credit report, you will want to head to http://www.annualcreditreport.com.
Now, when you get your credit report, you’re going to be able to see the following. While it’s straight forward, I can understand on why some may seem kind of confusing.
When you first opened the account: You will notice a date, as well as if it’s still active, or if you closed it.
What kind of credit account is it? It may be a mortgage, loan, or something such as a store credit card. It will always list the name of what it is.
Who owns it? It will have the name of who’s on the account. It’s either going to be you, your spouse, or both combined.
How much is owed? Credit reports are generally updated monthly, and while the owed amount won’t be accurate, it should be fairly close.
What is your minimum payment? This is written down to let creditors know how much you have to pay at a minimum each month.
Payment history: On your credit report, you will see little red X’s, or green check marks. This is a sign to show you how you’ve paid off your payments over the months.
As you can see, even if you haven’t picked up your credit report yet, you’re going to see that it’s fairly easy to read your credit report. If you ever see an error, make sure that you report the errors ASAP. Check out a post that I wrote about a few months back on how to get late payments off your credit report.
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