They May Seem Small…

But They Can Cause a LOT of Harm.

If you are like 79% of all the consumers in the United States you may be dealing with Credit Report Errors!  These errors may seem small – but they can cause a LOT of harm. So let’s address this epidemic and see what may be wrong with Your report!

Dealing with thousands of consumers who have credit report errors, we often feel like picking up the phone and yelling this at the Credit Bureaus. The truth behind it is that they are not near as in control as you might think!

You Had 1 Job

and You Couldn’t Even Do THAT Right!

The Aggregate Delimma

The credit bureaus do not investigate your financial situation or your loans. They depend on creditors to submit your information to them to compile your credit. In turn, they take all that data and compile it into 1 report – your “Credit Report“.

Your credit report is a list of all of your creditors who choose to report your information to any , or all, of the credit bureaus. This is where the credit report errors come in. When multiple companies from all across the nation start compiling your information there are going to be errors!

Since the credit bureaus are busy collecting and compling your data, they are not taking the time to ensure that the data is accurate or verifiable. They are simply displaying the data that is given to them by your creditors and then showing you what they got!

Credit Report Errors Explained

Let’s take at some hypothetical” scenario’s that cause Credit Report Errors;

Example 1: The Mistaken Identity

You applied for an account YEARS ago with ABC Creditor and got approved for a credit card. Now, let’s say that ABC Creditor had misspelled your name, mis-typed your social security number, or put the wrong date of birth into their system. The information from the application is populated into their system and then submitted to the credit bureaus.

Now your credit report (that impacts almost all of your finances) has inaccurate information about you on it. ABC Creditor entering these errors from their system to the bureaus can cause a mismatch in accounts being reported. This means that someone elses information is NOW showing on your credit report. Sound far fetched? We see it almost EVERY day!

Example 2: Missing Data

ABC Creditor (who is apparently doing a REALLY bad job now) submits information to the credit bureaus about your account with them. Since this is a credit card, they need to report the Credit Limit, Balance, Date of Last Activity, Payment History, Date Opened….ok, there are like 15 items they are supposed to report, you get where we are going.

For our example, ABC Creditor increases your credit limit and does not update your account with the credit bureaus. Now this account, that you have been paying on time and keeping a Healthy Credit Balance on is showing that you are $500 over the credit limit. This can cause MASS devestation to your credit scores!

FICO looks at your credit balances as your ability to use credit responsiblity. When they see that you go over your limit it will immediately lower your credit scores (Read More Here) and flag you as a very high risk to other creditors. All of this because they did not update the data on your credit report properly.

Example 3: It’s Not Mine

When you look at a credit report and see items that you are not aware of, the knee-jerk reaction is to think it is not yours. This is VERY common with Collection Agencies because (unfortunately) they are the worst about reporting data accurately. One of the most common credit report errors we find with collection agencies is that they do not report the Creditors name on the account.

This is most common with Medical collections that just the original creditor as MEDICAL. We consider this an error if you have not been notified of the collection activity and been allowed the proper time to dispute the validity of the debt. Reporting a collection without the proper Due Process is a violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. This is a very common practice with collectors and is actually illegal (especially when they intentionally send the notice to an old address).

Credit Report Errors Top 10 List! 

The list of credit report errors is WAY more extensive then what you would imagine. Just to show off a bit, here are our Top 10 Favorite Credit Report Errors!

10) No Date of Last Activity Showing

9) Account Miscoded

8) Inaccurate Credit Limit

7) Inaccurate Payment History

6) Multiple Inquiries from the same company

5) Inaccurate Credit Card Balances

4) Inaccurate Addresses

3) Inaccurate Personal Information (Name, Date of Birth, Social)

2) Data Merge Errors

1) BAD COLLECTION AGENCIES!