What Is A Personal Credit Report?

If you have been turned down for a job, apartment or store credit card it's probably because of your credit report. You should invest in getting your personal credit report from the credit bureaus.

When you first get your personal credit report you may be a little confused at what you are looking at. So let's go over exactly what your credit report entails.

Every time you borrow money from someone, like a credit card company, store card, a car loan or any other form of credit it will be recorded in your credit report. All of your personal information will be on it such as your current and previous address, your employment history and aliases that you use. Every time you make a payment whether is late or on time it will go on your report. Anytime you apply for credit it will also be listed on your credit report.

This is important to lenders when deciding if you are a good candidate to lend more credit to. Insurance companies have even started using your credit report to determine if you are a credit risk.

This is why it is so important for you to get your hands on your personal credit report. You need to know what is on it. There are three credit reporting agencies. Different companies generally use one of these three, so you will need to obtain all three credit reports.

Here are the three agencies that you will need to contact to get your personal credit report. You are entitled to one free personal credit report a year.

Experian (located at www.experian.com) Trans Union (located at www.transunion.com ) Equifax (located at www.equifax.com )

Be prepared to give them your full legal name, current address, as well as your previous addresses, your date of birth, social security number and a signature. There is a form that you will need to fill out that you can get from each agency.

Other ways for you to get a free copy of your personal credit report are:

1. You don't have a job, but plan to look for one within the next two months. 2. You've been the victim of credit identify fraud or some other fraud that will affect your report. 3. You are currently on welfare 4. You've recently been turned down for credit

Once your have your credit report in front of you will want to review all of the information on it to ensure that it is all accurate.

First you should go over your personal information, then move on the your payment history and then to your aliases.

If your credit report has bad marks on it, there are two things that you can do depending on if it is correct or not. If some of these remarks are true, the only thing that you can do is wait. If they are incorrect than you can contact the bureau's by mail and request that it be removed since it is not correct. It is best to send them as much documentation confirming your claim. Make sure that you send copies of your documents and not the originals. They will have 30 days to investigate your claim and if they find it to be true they will remove it from your credit report and send you an updated copy of it. That depends on whether or not the marks are true.

A good credit report is the key to having a successful financial life. So you should request your free personal credit report from the three credit reporting agencies every year.