Many people assume their credit report is the same thing as their credit score, or that whatever is on it must be correct. Neither is true. Your credit report is the record of your accounts that scores are calculated from, it does not include a score, and it can contain mistakes. To read it, get your reports from all three bureaus, check your personal information, go through each account and its payment history, look at negative items and inquiries, and dispute anything inaccurate with both the bureau and the company that reported it. The steps below follow that order.
Step 1: Get your reports from all three bureaus
Start with the reports themselves, not a score app. Equifax, Experian and TransUnion each keep their own file on you, and lenders do not always report to all three, so the reports can differ. You can get free reports from each bureau at AnnualCreditReport.com, the official site for free credit reports, and the bureaus currently allow free online reports on a regular basis, often weekly. Requesting your own report is a soft inquiry and does not affect your scores.
Download or save each report as a file so you can compare them and keep a dated copy. Set aside some time: a report with several accounts can run many pages.
Step 2: Check your personal information
The first section lists your name and its variations, current and past addresses, date of birth, part of your Social Security number and sometimes employers. Scoring models do not use this information to calculate a score, but it still matters, because it is how the bureau matches accounts to you.
Look for:
- addresses where you never lived, which can point to identity theft or to another person's information mixed into your file;
- a name you have never used;
- a wrong date of birth or Social Security number digits.
Old addresses and spelling variations of your name are normal and not a problem on their own. An address you do not recognize, especially alongside an account you do not recognize, is worth disputing.
Step 3: Go through each account line by line
This is the section scoring models rely on most. Each account, also called a tradeline, shows the lender, the account type, the date opened, the credit limit or original loan amount, the current balance, the status and a month-by-month payment history.
For each credit card, check:
- Ownership. Whether you are listed as the individual owner, a joint owner or an authorized user.
- Credit limit. A missing or understated limit can make your utilization look higher than it is, because utilization compares balances to limits.
- Balance. Usually the balance from a recent statement, not today's balance, which is normal.
- Payment history. Every month should show as current unless you really were late.
- Status. An account you closed should show as closed, and one you paid off should not show a balance.
A hypothetical shows why the limit line matters. Suppose you have two cards, each with a $5,000 limit, and a combined reported balance of $1,500. With both limits reported, your utilization is 15%. If one card shows no limit, or a limit of $1,000 by mistake, the same balances can look like a much larger share of your available credit. If you see this, check the issuer's statement or app for the correct limit and include it in your dispute.
Accounts you closed in good standing can stay on your report for years, and that is generally helpful, since they show a longer history. An account you never opened is a different matter and should be disputed, and you may want to place a fraud alert or credit freeze as well.
Step 4: Look at negative items and their dates
Negative items include late payments of 30 days or more, collection accounts, charge-offs, and public records such as bankruptcies. These carry the most weight in scoring models, so check them carefully.
For each one, confirm two things: that it really happened, and that its dates are right. Most negative items can be reported for up to seven years, measured from the date of the original delinquency, and bankruptcies can stay longer. If a collection account shows a recent date for a debt that first went unpaid long ago, the reporting date may be wrong, which can keep it on your report longer than it should be.
A hypothetical: your report shows a 60-day late payment in March on a card you paid on time that month. If you have the bank statement or payment confirmation, that is an error worth disputing. If the payment was actually late, it is accurate, and disputing it will not remove it. The article on what to do after a missed credit card payment covers what tends to help when a late payment is accurate.
Step 5: Review the inquiries
The inquiries section shows who requested your report. Hard inquiries come from applications for credit and can lower scores slightly for a limited time. Soft inquiries, including your own requests and prescreened offers, are usually listed separately and do not affect scores.
Check that each hard inquiry matches an application you made. A lender may appear under a parent company or a bank name you do not recognize, so look it up before deciding it is fraud. A car dealer may also have sent your application to several lenders. A hard inquiry from a company you never dealt with is a reason to dispute it and to check the rest of the report for new accounts.
Step 6: Dispute errors with the credit bureau
For each error, file a dispute with every bureau that shows it. Each bureau accepts disputes online, by mail and by phone. Online is usually fastest; mail gives you a paper record with a delivery date.
Include:
- your name, address and the report or confirmation number;
- the account or item you are disputing, exactly as it appears on the report;
- a short explanation of what is wrong and what the correct information is;
- copies, never originals, of supporting documents, such as a payment confirmation or a letter from the lender.
The bureau generally has about 30 days to investigate, and it forwards your dispute to the company that reported the information. When the investigation ends, the bureau sends you the results and, if anything changed, a free copy of the updated report.
Keep a copy of everything you send, the dispute confirmation number and the date. A simple log with one row per disputed item, listing the bureau, the date filed, the confirmation number and the outcome, makes the follow-up in step 8 much easier when several items are open at once.
Step 7: Contact the company that reported the information
The lender or collector that supplied the information, called the furnisher, can also correct it. Disputing directly with the furnisher is useful when you have documents from it, such as a letter confirming a payment arrangement, or when the same error appears at all three bureaus, because a correction at the source flows to every bureau the furnisher reports to.
Send the dispute to the address the furnisher designates for credit reporting disputes, which is often listed on your statement or its website. Use the same contents as in step 6, and keep a copy.
Step 8: Follow up and know your next options
About a month after filing, pull the report again and confirm that the correction appears at each bureau that had the error. Corrections do not always reach all three at the same time.
If an error stays on your report after the investigation, you have options. You can submit new information to the bureau and ask for another review. You can add a brief statement of dispute to your file, which stays with the report. You can also submit a complaint to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau about the bureau or the furnisher.
Be wary of any company that promises to remove accurate negative information or that wants payment before doing any work. Everything in this article you can do yourself, for free. For what tends to move scores once your report is accurate, the guides on optimizing your credit score while minimizing debt risk and on building credit without a traditional credit history cover the next steps, depending on where you are starting.
