Why do MANY of my accounts not show up on EQ?

[beutiful5678]

OMG. I wonder if this is what happened to my Experian file. I just realized this past week that I have an entire set of seven US Dept of Ed Direct student loans missing from Experian and these loans had perfect payment history. I just looked on an Experian report that I pulled in 2014 and they were there. They must have fallen off in one of the subsequent years because I just looked and they were not on the report that I pulled in January when I started caring about my credit again. I have a very thick file with ~45 accounts normally so the thickness of my file is definitely a culprit.

I should probably follow up with Experian. I was just looking at my reports this morning on the myFICO app and it has the percentage of accounts with positive payment history - Equifax and TransUnion are 61% and Experian is only 50% so the absence of these accounts is definitely having an impact. I want credit for those accounts with perfect payments!

[AndySoCal]

Questions on the acocunts not reporting

1) Are they open accounts

2) If they are closed accounts how long have they been closed with no balance? If the answer to that is 7 years or more. The credit reporting time period those trade lines is 7 years and they fall off the credit report.

[Anonymous]

Hi Andy.  Closed accounts usually fall off reports ten years after they are closed, not seven.  Just an FYI.

[AndySoCal]

If they closed in good standing (no derog) the FCRA does not have a time frame technically. I have had trade lines fall off that have been closed in good standing around the 7 year time frame.

[Anonymous]

When you wrote "The credit reporting time period those trade lines is 7 years and they fall off the credit report" I figured most people would understand you to mean that at 7 years the account would be certain to fall off the report (or at least likely).

I am saying that this is very rare (though certainly possible).  Far more common is for an account to stay on the report until year ten and then fall off. 

[Stugotsv10]

spent most of  the day making calls to correct this.

1 of my accounts had my DOB wrong, so maybe we will see something.

other 5 accounts everything was accurate.

Accounts refuse to call Equifax and Equifax refuses to call accounts/creditors.........

one thing I noticed is EQ had my first name spelled incorrectly, not sure if I simply never noticed that or its a new change or whatever.

just pisses me off since these 6 accounts would bring my EQ close to 850 like my other 2..........

can the incorrect spelling on my name cause this? 

[Anonymous]

Yes, incorrect spelling of a person's name can be the culprit.  The first steps for a person in this situation are to pull true full report (e.g. via annualCreditReport.com) and then compare the SSN, the exact spelling of the name, the Date of Birth, and the exact spelling of the address (including city, state, and zip) with each creditor.  This can and should involve checking your account with the creditor online (e.g. if it is a Chase card sign onto Chase.com) but also to call the customer service dept with the CC issuer and double check with them too.

You want to be sure that every creditor is using the exact same info for these fields, including precise spelling (the same current address is very important, but so are all those aforementioned fields).  If any creditor makes a change (e.g. to spelling of name) it could take a couple months before it starts being updated at the CRA properly.  You also want to be sure of course that not only do the fields agree between creditors and also they agree between creditor and what is on the report.

Only after all this is completely confirmed can you begin to deal with other theories, such as the possibility of a spilt file.

[Stugotsv10]

doing that now

[AndySoCal]

OP

Can you provide a generic description of the accounts that are not reporting? Basically what would like to know is

1) Are these accounts open and active ?

2) Are these accounts closed and when you last used them (Approximatley) or when they where closed? 

The date of birth being incorrect in the vast majority of cases will not affect if the account shows on the credit report. Where it will affect it is in cases of Father and son have the same name where one is SR and JR. If the generation code is not provided the bureau(s) will use the date of birth. The same would be true if two people had a similiar name like two brothers same first and last name and the middle initial is the same but the middle name is different like Fred and Frank.

[Stugotsv10]

all accounts open/active, 2 of the 6 have small small balances

Home depot

Sears mastercard

Discover

Old navy

Elan financial

Chase