Credit Report Inaccuracies

[Anonymous]

I recently downloaded my credit report and found some inaccurate information in the personal information section. It lists an employer that I never worked for. Where do they get the information for this section? How do I find out how this got there? Also, they have in the AKA section my name written differently than I use it.

[llecs]

Where did you get your report from and which CRA?

[Anonymous]

I used freecreditreport.com. They provided mw with information from experian, equifax and transunion.

[llecs]

I've used FCR in the past including creditchecktotal (also an EX product) and I've found a number of inaccurate items on there. Before you can do anything, you'd need to pull your reports directly from all 3 CRAs. You can do so for free via www.annualcreditreport.com. On EX (and I think TU) you will see a demographics section. EX will actually list a numerical code next to everything including the employer section. You can trace back that code to the associated TL to see who is reporting that employer.

On my reports it lists a number of former names, former employers, and former addresses that are all wrong. So as long as it doesn't show incorrect current info, you should be OK. Also make sure it doesn't show any names that are totally off base, like Jane Doe, if you are John Smith, etc.

[MattH]

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@llecs wrote:
I've used FCR in the past including creditchecktotal (also an EX product) and I've found a number of inaccurate items on there. Before you can do anything, you'd need to pull your reports directly from all 3 CRAs. You can do so for free via www.annualcreditreport.com. On EX (and I think TU) you will see a demographics section. EX will actually list a numerical code next to everything including the employer section. You can trace back that code to the associated TL to see who is reporting that employer.

On my reports it lists a number of former names, former employers, and former addresses that are all wrong. So as long as it doesn't show incorrect current info, you should be OK. Also make sure it doesn't show any names that are totally off base, like Jane Doe, if you are John Smith, etc.

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My reports have several minor inaccuracies, none of which I see any need to fix, things like obvious typos in street names of prior addresses and the name of one employer.  Also a car loan that I paid off nine years ago is incorrectly coded as an unsecured loan rather than as an installment loan; since it has no negatives and is so far back in the past I see no reason to bother trying to get it coded correctly.

I suspect the statistics one often sees in the news media about how "X percent of credit reports contain errors" may be a little misleading if those percentages include cases like mine.  Yes there are a few incorrect facts in my reports, but I check them regularly and have never seen any errors worth the bother of trying to get them fixed. So far as I can tell, balances and payment histories are correct, as are the account ages.

Message Edited by MattH on 05-24-2009 09:08 PM