Imagine finding the home of your dreams. It is the perfect place, perfect style, even the perfect price. Excitedly, you start the loan application process. You know this part of the process will be easy because it has always paid your bills on time and has only one credit card each month you pay in full. To his surprise, however, your application is rejected due to various credit cards have been made on their behalf, to the fullest, and never paid. Your credit is ruined, and their dream home will never be a reality thanks to an identity thief.
This scenario may be hypothetical, but similar situations happen to people all over the country every day. Many people are victims of identity theft and not even realize it until they need to use your credit for something, like buying a car or a house. However, it need not be. If you check your credit reports each year, you can ensure that no unauthorized activities are ruining their credit.
Now you can receive a copy of your credit report for free, the only possible excuse for not control is that you can understand how to read and that is what we will discuss now.
The credit report is divided into four parts. The first part contains personal information such as name, social security number, and employer. You may want to check this part of the errors, but if you are interested in capturing the activity of identity theft will not find the test here.
Instead, one of its focus should be on the second part of the report. This is your credit history, which includes a list of all creditors. For each account, find the date the account opened, the type of account is the amount that the account was originally the amount still owed, the amount of payments, account status and payment history. Go to each entry in this section of your report carefully. If you find any accounts you do not remember the opening, take note of them. If any information, such as the amount owed on the accounts do not match your expectations, then take note of that too.
Once you have checked the credit history you will find the public records section. Again, this probably will not be much use to you if you're tracking evidence of identity theft as it includes foreclosures, bankruptcies, etc. However, make the information in this section is correct. Some lenders consider that almost 80% of all credit reports contain some types of errors and as this section is important that you want to be precise.
The last section - the research arm - must also be carefully evaluated. You see, every time you or a potential creditor checks your credit report, a note from research conducted in this section. Victims of identity theft is likely to see a series of questions, he or she can not explain. Now note that there are two types of questions included in this section. The "soft" inquiries, as they are called, refers to research by potential creditors that you did not request. For example, a credit card company may check your credit history before submitting an offer for a gold card. The "hard" inquiries are ones you need to be interested in because it is supposedly asked the question. If there is anything that the report does not agree with, then take note.
Once you have reviewed your report, contact the credit bureau and creditors of any errors or discrepancies that you notice.
October 29, 2011, 03:46:35 AM