Incorrect Address/Employers

[Anonymous]

All of my credit reports have my employer listed several times (spell or abbreviated differently), one has an employer for whom I never worked, and two have addresses which I have never had any connection with. 

I've had only 3 employers in my adult life, looking at the credit reports it looks like I've had 20+.  I've only lived at 4 different address, there are 10+ listed (some just spelled wrong, some of which I am totally unfamiliar). 

Will this hurt my credit in any way?  Is it worth disputing? 

[haulingthescoreup]

Well, first of all, they don't affect your score, and this includes the employment info, which once upon a time was calculated in. But the addresses in particular could cause you trouble down the road. When one of the other mods app'd for Discover, they pulled EX, which had a bad address, so they also did a hard on TU just to confirm. Also, your apps could be held up while they try to confirm your correct info.

My addresses were OK, but my employment info was screwed up. I did an online correction with all three, and they mostly got it right, but I wound up having to thrash out the final bit with EQ and EX over the phone.

I would do an online correction of the addresses first, and once they're resolved, clean up the employment info. You might have to send in proof of address, so a fax machine is handy. The reason that I said to do it in two separate steps is that during this process, you can update your full EX and TU reports, checking for softs and so forth, as you are disputing. This will also give you full creditor info, including addresses, if you need them.

[Anonymous]

Yep, you can dispute it all online.  I did and for the most part, as been stated, they got it right. 

I too was surprised at the inaccurate information as far as employment and addresses.  Especially employment.  I have truly only had two jobs in my entire adult life.  They were the US Marine Corps and I was in the SES at FEMA .  Yet my reports in Jan 2008 listed that I had over 12 employers during that same period of time!  All three removed these of my reports.  Now if I could only get them to remove two more wrong addresses!     

[MidnightVoice]

I spent some time getting all that right.  I think it helps protect you against mistakes down the road if it is all as perfect as possible

[Anonymous]

Yes, but EX can be a pain in the $%*& on these things.    I have an address where I never lived - disputed it but they refused to remove it as one inquiry referenced this wrong address and you know they won't touch those.

And another problem, name related, from MyFico of all places.    I inadvertantly spelled my name wrong when signing up as a myfico.com member so I could get on this forum and to order my FICO scores.   When I finally did order the FICO Credit Complete, myfico sent my name info to the CRA's and guess what EX did?   They added it to the names on my report.

When I asked them to remove, they said "contact myfico, they reported it".   When I called myfico, they said "we did not report this, you should call EX".     Now I am stuck.

Any suggestions out there to remove this?

[Anonymous]

Ah, my favorite pet peeve. I've gotten TU and EQ pretty much accurate but EX is staffed with idiotic, deranged robots. My name was listed in several confusing variations. In the last go round with them I faxed docs and told them to fix it. Ha! They fixed it, except they omitted 2 letters of my first name!  

[RobertEG]

Ditto, ditto, ditto!  It took me a loooong time for them (all three CRAs) to get even some modicum of consistency and correctness with my past and present (not to mention past past) addresses and employers.  And they still also record and spell them differently.  I agree that, while it does not count directly into FICO scoring, it can have an impact on a creditor's review of your application, particularly for a mortgage loan, when they are looking deeper than just the simple FICO score.  Does he live in an apartment or a house; is he really retired?  Has he changed residence and/or jobs every year? These can be factors for some lenders.   I can now only rely on the hope that a future loan officer has a HS diploma, and will realize that the still-exisitng differences are all semantical rather than substantive differences.