Eliminate Credit Debt

If you haven’t yet obtained your credit report, which you can get for free, you may wonder what information it contains. Other than your credit history, you can expect your credit report to contain your name, address, occupation, and date of birth. If you are a female, your maiden name and any married names you have used may be in the report as well. The report may also contain previous addresses and often employers will compare the information in your credit report with the information you provide on the employment application.

You can expect credit obligations for the past seven years to be reflected on your credit report. Remember, bad credit isn’t the only credit that is removed from your credit report after seven years; good credit is removed as well so it is important to continually maintain open accounts in good standing in order to have a good credit score.

You are also allowed to write a personal statement that is to be kept with your credit report. This is often done when you dispute a debt but the company with which you lodged the dispute does not agree and keeps the debt on your credit report. Often, consumers will include a personal statement explaining why they paid a debt late or paid slower than they should have. Perhaps there was a family emergency or a job was lost. Potential creditors may take these statements into consideration as they make future credit decisions.

It is important to check your credit report at least once each year for accuracy and also to ensure that creditors with whom you are current are indeed reporting your progress to the three credit reporting agencies. In fact, you should obtain a credit report from each of the three agencies to ensure that all three of them have the right information. Sometimes, people are turned down for credit, employment, or even housing because of inaccuracies in their credit reports so it is important to ensure they are accurate and up to date.