House for Rent

Content

• The TransUnion, Experian and Equifax credit bureaus gather personal and financial information about you from your creditors, court documents and public records. Your reports contain your name, aliases, birthday, current and past residences and phone numbers, employers and Social Security number, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. Credit bureau files also show continually updated data on your loans and credit cards, including balances and payments, and problems like repossessions, foreclosures and bankruptcy cases. Negative data is erased in seven to 10 years.

Use

• Your credit reports are mainly used for credit application processing. Lenders review them whenever you apply for accounts to see how deeply you are in debt and how well you handle financial obligations. Many insurance companies and employers also check your credit bureau files before allowing you to buy policies or hiring you, the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco explains. Other companies, such as rental management firms, cell phone service providers and public utilities, may also check your reports before doing business with you.

Access

• The Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act guarantees you the ability to access your credit reports annually at no charge. TransUnion, Experian and Equifax all offer the free copies through AnnualCreditReport.com, where you can get all three reports at once or space out your orders. For example, you can get one report every few months if you wish to spread out your reviews for more efficient identity-theft monitoring. Do not use the credit bureaus’ company websites to get your reports because they charge fees for direct orders, the Federal Trade Commission warns.

Disputes

• The Fair Credit Reporting Act protects you from credit report mistakes by empowering you to dispute them directly with Equifax, Experian and TransUnion whenever you find them. The FTC advises submitting your disputes in writing through certified mail and keeping copies for your records. The credit bureaus are limited to 30 days for their investigations of your complaints. They must either verify the data in question with the company that provided it to them or remove it from your reports.

Personal Statement

• You cannot force the credit bureaus to erase credit report information if they verify it as accurate to their satisfaction. The FCRA does let you add your own explanation about entries with which you do not agree, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. Your statement must be 100 words or less, and it can contain whatever information you wish to share with companies that review your reports. Send a statement copy to TransUnion, Experian and Equifax and ask them to add it to your files.