Reading My Credit Report

[Trish]

I am completely frustrated at this point - every single item that shows up on my credit report says things like The collection agency '66yc00000' was hired on xx/xx/xx by Creditor "not found" to collect debts on account number 'xxxxxxxxxxxxx". 

It's the same for any legal judgements that I have had.

Ok - I can understand not listing the whole account number - but how in the world am I suppose to know what collection agency or what creditor I owe or if I should be disputing something  if every thing is listed in number and letter codes on my credit report? 

I am trying to gather all of my debts together in the possiblity of filing for bankruptcy. (hard hard times have left me with little to no choice) - only in order to do this - I need to be able to have all of my creditors info - and how much I owe them.  I was advised the best way to do this was to go through my credit report - but so far that has proved to give me NADA for information.  I still don't know who half of these people are that say I owe them money or how to contact them - and there are many things on the credit reports that I question if they are even suppose to be mine.  (I had an identity left 5 years back - that I'm still trying to resolve).

Does any one know anyway to decipher this?  I cant' be the only one running into this problem....

How do you break the abbreviation and cold trail of a credit report that only gives you numbers or wierd letter abbreviations that don't seem to make anysense for the NAME of the creditor.

Any help would be GREATLY appreciated

[Anonymous]

My response this week is going to be to dispute EVERY entry that does not CLEARLY indicate the original creditor, the amount, and the date of delinquency. Under the reason for dispute, I'm going to candidly indicate that since there is no data to go by, I'm assuming the entry is erroneous or fraudulent until PROVEN otherwise.

[Anonymous]

NWMan - Be cautious, if you dispute too many items, it can backfire.  The credit bureaus brand it as a "friviolous dispute" and throw it back in your face.

It helps if you have all 3 credit reports.  That's a good starting point for deciphering the mess.  One collection agency will list gibberish for the OC, but then the entry for that CA on another report will show it more clearly.

Look at the dates shown for when you opened an account.  Where were you living? What were you doing at that point in your life? Married? School? Hospital? Etc?

[Trish]

I understand that disputing everything on a credit report - potentially could do more harm than good.

I don't want to put a blindfold on and just start throwing darts.  I would like to know who is saying I owe them money - again - the ?? is  - how do I figure out who???? When all I am being given is letter and number combinations where a name should be?  I thought when I signed up for myfico's services that I would get a L E G I B L E copy of my credit report along with my scoring - obviously I was sorely mistaken. 

[Tuscani]

Remember.. MyFico is just pulling your information from the bureaus and calculating a score. MyFico has nothing to do with the content or how items are reported. You need to contact the creditor or bureau for that.

[Anonymous]

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@Trish wrote:

I understand that disputing everything on a credit report - potentially could do more harm than good.

I don't want to put a blindfold on and just start throwing darts. I would like to know who is saying I owe them money - again - the ?? is - how do I figure out who???? When all I am being given is letter and number combinations where a name should be? I thought when I signed up for myfico's services that I would get a L E G I B L E copy of my credit report along with my scoring - obviously I was sorely mistaken.

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The problem is that the credit bureaus don't have any quality control measures in place regarding the information they accept for publication in your credit report. This is where the Feds need to step in. Any derogatory listing in your credit file should, by law, HAVE to include the original creditor, the date of first delinquency, the balance, the current creditor, and full contact information for both. No nonsense like an "NCO FINANCIAL/22" being able to stick in an entry that is blank except for the "collection" field.

[Anonymous]

Check your TU report. All of my TLs on TU have the full account number.