4 Reasons To Check Your Credit Report
Your credit report matters. Since Equifax, financial institutions, and many retailers have had issues protecting consumer information, you should check yours. Knowing what is in your credit report can help you avoid problems with everything from landing a job to buying a home. Here are four reasons to find out what’s in your credit report.
4 Reasons To Check Your Credit Report
1. Protect yourself and your cards from identity theft
Fraudulent credit accounts and loans in your name will ruin your credit score. In other words, getting them removed can be difficult, but must be done to clear your name.
2. Avoid unpleasant surprises with a bad report
Knowing what is on your credit report before you want to buy a car, apply for a mortgage, or rent an apartment is important because companies will be looking to pull your report before doing business with you.
3. Correct mistakes with credit reporting services
After that, checking your reports for mistakes or old information is a good idea to do as well. Request this information be removed.
4. Build your credit score for a better future
By paying your bills on time and lowering your debt you can build your credit score. Which will make it more attractive for financial organizations to do business with you.
Therefore, if you haven’t done so recently, take the time to check your credit report.
How long does it take?
The answer is…it depends. It depends on how you ordered your report. If you request your report at AnnualCreditReport.com, you should be able to access it immediately. You can order your report by calling (877) 322-8228 and it will be processed and mailed to you within 15 days. Similarly, if you use the Annual Credit Report Request Form or write a letter, your request will be processed and mailed to you within 15 days of receipt.
In addition, below are more safety-related posts:
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Janet Schiesl
Janet has been organizing since 2005. She is a Certified Professional Organizer and the owner of Basic Organization.
She loves using her background as a space planner to challenge her clients to look at their space differently. She leads the team in large projects and works one-on-one with clients to help the process move quickly and comfortably. Call her crazy, but she loves to work with paper, to purge what is not needed and to create filing systems that work for each individual client.
Janet is a Past Board Member of the National Association of Productivity and Organizing Professionals and a Past President of the Washington DC Chapter of NAPO were she has been named Organizer of the Year and Volunteer of the Year.
Janet Schiesl
Janet has been organizing since 2005. She is a Certified Professional Organizer and the owner of Basic Organization.
She loves using her background as a space planner to challenge her clients to look at their space differently. She leads the team in large projects and works one-on-one with clients to help the process move quickly and comfortably. Call her crazy, but she loves to work with paper, to purge what is not needed and to create filing systems that work for each individual client.
Janet is a Past Board Member of the National Association of Productivity and Organizing Professionals and a Past President of the Washington DC Chapter of NAPO were she has been named Organizer of the Year and Volunteer of the Year.
My husband had his identity stolen years ago, and it was a HUGE job to get things back in order. This is very important for everyone. It seems like some site gets hacked every day, so wise to be on top of your credit report and not experience those “unpleasant surprises!”
That’s too bad Seana. It’s such a hassle to restore your digital identity.
Regularly checking your credit report is so important! Thank you for these reasons and the details on how to request a credit report. I hope this motivates many people to check their reports!
Thanks Nancy.
It is important.
Great reminder! Credit monitoring is also a great option too. They email you and text you right away when there are changes to your report.
That’s a great service for folks who never check their report themselves. Thanks for mentioning it.
We used to get a ton of calls from a collection agency about an individual with the same last name. Eventually we got concerned that their delinquency might hurt our credit rating so we requested reports and were relieved to see no reference to any of it.
I’ve heard you should do it too often though, because it may show up on the record as a credit application and too many of those could raise a red flag.
Yes, I’ve heard the same thing. I think once a year is enough.
What a great reminder! To go along with this, on some home insurance policies you can add an inexpensive rider that will cover some of the costs if you do have an identity theft issue. The fees are nominal and the coverage is pretty substantial. It could be worth looking into in addition to checking your credit reports.
Thanks for the suggestion Linda. This is an important topic.
I suspect I’ll have credit monitoring available to me for the end of time; every time another company gets hacked, they provide users with a year of monitoring; the monitoring due me will probably outlast me. Still, I like checking my own reports, creating a PDF of all three, and going slowly through each one to make sure nothing is awry. It gives me a wonderful snapshot, and it means that if something does get mucked up, I’ll have a baseline of the last time everything was fine.
Thanks for sharing!
That’s a great idea Julie. I should do this too.