Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Equifax Credit Report

Last week I ordered my credit reports from Equifax and TransUnion. The Equifax report has arrived and it contains less than I would have guessed. In addition it has a few errors.

The first thing after my name is wrong. It shows me living at a family member’s house. Based on the reporting date this seems to be incorrect information from when I opened a joint account with this family member. The bank managed to send me statements at the correct address, but somehow the information they sent to Equifax was messed up. My previous addresses are accurate, but the dates associated with them show no correlation with reality.

The next category of information is current and previous employers. This information is fairly accurate except for the barely recognizable phonetic spelling of a previous employer’s name.

Then it shows my birth date (with the month omitted for security) and Social Insurance Number (with the middle three digits omitted for security). Based on the reporting date, they didn’t know this information until I asked for the credit report. I wouldn’t have included this information on my request had I known they didn’t already have it.

The next section is credit inquiries showing dates, requester’s name, and requester’s telephone number. The final section is a list of credit accounts including credit cards and lines of credit. In each case I’m given a rating of R1 or C1 (depending on the account type) which mean “paid as agreed and up to date”. For each account the report lists how many times the account has been past due 2, 3, or 4 payment periods. Apparently, making a mistake and being late for one payment did me no harm.

The report comes with a form to correct mistakes. I’ve sent in the request to get my current address fixed. It will be interesting to see whether they actually fix it. The main thing is that there is no evidence of identity theft.

6 comments:

  1. Good to know. This makes me want to get on the ball and order my report to check. It's been a very long time since I've checked mine.

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  2. I periodically check my reports and have never had any errors reported. Yours is a comedy of errors, though you're probably not laughing. I wonder how they could possibly not know your date of birth. Makes me wonder how many people are either denied or granted credit erroneously.

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  3. @Melanie: You're ahead of me. This was the first time I checked my report.

    #Gene: I laughed at first, but then thought about the potential problems that could be caused. I think the best solution is to not need credit, but that isn't an option for most people.

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  4. Equifax has my report all jacked up. I am talking wrong like two boys in bed with a goat. The funny thing is they are the only one of the three companies that are that messed up. Yet every company uses them. USAA informed me that they have a contract with Equifax to use them exclusively. Does this seem right to you? I think not. It amazes me that companies that are set on the principle of making money through loans, would use a faulty unit and not have a secondary system to fall back on. This in part is what is wrong with the USofA today.

    @michael, your right it would be great if we didnt need credit, but lets see you buy a car without it, let alone a house.

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  5. @Anonymous: I have no reason to believe that one credit reporting company is any less accurate than the others, but I see your point about a backup.

    As for taking on loans, I've found it fairly painless to pay cash for cars. If you start out paying cash for your first car you can then "save the payments" and be ready to pay cash for the next one. The houses I've owned were a different story. I did take out mortgages, but paid them off quickly.

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  6. Just got mine and all is good but why is there no credit rating number included?

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