Personal Credit Reports for the Uninitiated
A Credit Article Contributed by Mark Mcclelland
What, Exactly, is a Personal Credit Report
For all practical purposes, your "personal credit report" consists of all the accumulated data utilized primarily to make informed financial decisions regarding your applications for loans, credit cards, mortgages, and the like. And the details contained in you personal credit report may affect the interest rates you're offered or other specific terms of the agreement - that is, if your application is accepted at all.
The fact is that the details may also give the lending institution cause to actually turn down your application for that low interest credit card or that 0% automobile loan. So, the bottom line here is that finding out what your personal credit report actually says right now, and making sure that the data it contains is, and remains, accurate could save you a lot of trouble in the future.
How Do You Get Your Personal Credit Reports
Financial data about you is collected, primarily, by three nationwide credit reporting agencies (CRAs), or credit bureaus: Equifax, Experian (formerly TRW), and TransUnion. And fortunately for us consumers, as of December 2003, the FTC has required that these three agencies provide us, upon request, a free copy of our credit report once every 12 months. But the operative phrase here is "by request". You will receive nothing automatically - you must ask for it.
And in addition, under the final rule published in June of 2004, the three CRAs are required to establish a "centralized source" for accepting consumer requests for personal credit reports. However, with the good news comes the bad: this centralized source will be made available to consumers in stages beginning December 1, 2004, with the roll out scheduled for completion by September 1, 2005.
Consumers will become eligible according to the following schedule:
* Consumers in Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming will be able to use the centralized source starting December 1, 2004;
* Consumers in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin will will be able to use the centralized source starting March 1, 2005;
* Consumers in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas will will be able to use the centralized source starting June 1, 2005; and
* and consumers in Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, and West Virginia, Puerto Rico, and all U.S. territories will will be able to use the centralized source starting September 1, 2005.
What's in Your Personal Credit Report
There are four basic types of data contained in your personal credit report: identification and employment data, payment history data, inquiries, and public record data. Each of these types of data are used by interested parties differently.
Lending institutions, for example, might be primarily interested in your employment data and payment history, with public information and the number of inquires being of secondary interest, while prospective employers might be primarily interested in your employment data and public record information. Suffice it to say though, that when it comes to your financial history, what you don't know (about what others are saying about you) can certainly come back to bite.
Get a copy of personal credit reports now to find out. You may be pleasantly surprised, then again...
