What’s On Your Credit Report

What’s On Your Credit Report

The key to credit repair is your credit report. After all, it’s the information on your credit report that influences whether you have good credit or bad. When you’re looking at your credit report for the first time, you might not completely understand what you’re looking at. Since most credit report are laid out similarly, you can apply this quick guide to any credit report you order.

Personal Information

The first section of your credit report contains your personal information. Here you’ll find your name and variations of your name. For example, your name might appear as John Doe, John L Doe, or John Doe, Jr. Be careful if you’re a Jr. or Sr. and the wrong name appears on your credit report. Your accounts list could also contain some incorrect accounts.

Your current and previous addresses also appear in the personal information section. Watch out for addresses where you’ve never lived – these can also indicate an instance of identity theft.

Current and previous employers are listed in the personal information section of your credit report.

Account History

If you’ve been using credit for several years, the account history section of your credit report will be the biggest section. On the other hand, if you’ve only had credit for a few years, the account history section will be slim.

The account history section lists details about all your credit accounts including credit cards, loans, and mortgages. Each of your credit accounts will have a 24-month payment history noting whether each month’s payment was late or on time. The remarks section will note if your account had delinquencies like “90-days late two times.”

Each account can be categorized in two ways: revolving (credit cards) or installment (loans). For credit cards, the current balance, highest balance ever charged, and credit limit are listed. Loans will list the amount borrowed and current loan balance.

Debt collections are usually listed in the account history part of your credit report.

The summary section varies by credit report but typically gives a highlight of the negative information on your credit report, like the number of negative accounts and the total amount past due. The summary section may also provide information about your total credit age and total amount of credit card and loan balances.

The biggest section of your credit report lists details about all your credit accounts individually. For each credit card, loan, collection account, etc. the same basic information is reported:

• Information about the creditor
• Status of the account, e.g. whether you’re current or past due
• Date the account was opened
• Last time the account was updated
• Type of account, e.g. installment, revolving, collection, etc.
• Monthly payment
• Type of account responsibility, e.g. joint, individual, or authorized user
• Credit limit or original loan amount
• High balance (this is the highest balance charged on the account)
• Current balance
• Last payment
• Account history for the past seven years
• Your personal statement for the account

Public Records

Public records are serious delinquencies that are also on record with your local court. This includes bankruptcy, repossession, foreclosure, and evictions.

Inquiries

Inquiries appear on your credit report whenever another business checks your credit report. Hard inquiries are the result of your applications for credit or credit-based services. For example, a hard inquiry will be added to your credit report when you apply for a credit card or an apartment that does credit checks.

Soft inquiries are from companies that you already do business with, e.g. your current credit card company checking your credit to increase your credit limit. It also includes your own credit checks and credit checks from businesses for promotional purposes.

Credit Score

Your credit score is the numeric summary or “grade” for the information in your credit report. Credit scores range from 300 to 850 (higher is better) and aren’t automatically included with your credit report (but you can order them separately). Your credit report directly influences your credit score. Positive information on your credit report helps your credit score, while negative information hurts your credit score.

As you review your credit report, look for things that are hurting your credit score,  like delinquencies and maxed out balances. Dispute inaccurate information that drags your credit score down and take necessary steps to repair your credit history.

Even reading about what’s in your credit report doesn’t fully help you understand your credit report. Fortunately, there are a few tutorials out there provided by the same people who put your credit report together. Here are a few sample credit reports:

1. Experian (PDF)

2. myFICO

3. TransUnion (PDF)

These samples are especially helpful when you order your credit report from one of those three providers.