Understanding the Key Items in Your Credit Report
Written by Fiona Gu   


In the United States, it is required by law to receive your credit reports once every year from each of the 3 credit reporting bureaus for free. However, if you want to read your credit report more frequently, you can purchase it from any of the CRBs. The 3 national CRBs are Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion.

Within a credit report, there are many professional terms you should understand in order to obtain the most accurate information. Generally, there are 5 elements of a standard credit report. These include Personal Information, Account Summary, Credit Inquiries, Creditor Contacts and Personal Statement.

It is extremely important to read the credit reports in detail. Now we would go through each of the 5 elements thoroughly to help you better understand your credit report. The sample credit report format used is from Privacy-Matters 1-2-3.  

In general, credit reports include most of, or all of the following 7 sections:
  • Personal Information
  • Account Summary
  • Account History
  • Credit Inquiries
  • Creditor Contacts
  • Public Records
  • Personal Information

Personal Information



Your personal information is only used for identification. Factors that show up in this section do NOT affect your credit scores. However you still need to review this section carefully, to make sure that all the information is accurate and updated timely. This section contains your:
  1. Identifying Information: Your name, address, and date of birth. It is not uncommon that your name may be misspelled. So make sure you pay attention to the spelling and numbers in your name, address and birth date.
     
  2. Social Security Number: You can decide whether you want to have your entire SSN displayed. To protect your identity, it is a good idea to ask the credit bureaus to only show the last four digits.
     
  3. Report Number: A report number is a reference number assigned to you by the three credit bureaus. You need to have this number ready when you contact Equifax, Experian or TransUnion.
     
  4. Current and Previous Addresses: You need to make sure that your addresses are up to date. Keep your permanent address constant so you will not be seen as a “nomad” by your creditors. Creditors do not prefer “nomad” people. However you do not have to physically live at your permanent address but it does show up on all your reports.
     
  5. Employment: This may include the name and address of your current and previous employers. However not all employers will provide your employment information to the credit bureaus. You can contact your employer and credit bureaus once you find any erroneous or missing data here.

Account Summary


Also known as “Credit Summary”, the Account Summary section summarizes the types of accounts under your name. Though it differs among the 3 credit bureaus, in this section your accounts are typically divided into the following 9 categories:
  1. Total Accounts: All the open and closed accounts.
     
  2. Open Accounts: Number of accounts that are “open”.
     
  3. Closed Accounts: Number of accounts that are “closed”.
     
  4. Delinquent: Number of accounts that are currently past due for payments.
     
  5. Derogatory: Number of accounts that are negatively affecting your credit score. Delinquent and Derogatory are the most important sections. Anything other than “0” in these sections would have a negative effect on your credit score.
     
  6. Balances: Total debt owed from all your accounts.
     
  7. Payments: Total debt owed in monthly payments from all your accounts.
     
  8. Inquiries: Number of inquiry records (also called hard pulls) from the last 2 years. These records are verified by a financial institution for the purpose of a new credit application. Too many hard pulls could negatively affect your credit score. You can also check your credit score (also known as a soft pull), but it is not reported and does not affect your credit score.

Account History


This section is the core of your entire credit report. It contains information about all the credit accounts under your name and how they are paid. The information in your account history is the most detailed and worth your time and efforts to go through.

Account categories

The credit accounts are split into the following 5 categories:
  1. Revolving: Open terms accounts with varying payments such as credit card account.
     
  2. Real Estate: Your first and second home mortgage loans.
     
  3. Installment: Accounts based on fixed terms with regular payments such as a car loan.
     
  4. Collection: Seriously past due accounts can be turned over to an attorney or collection agency. You may not be currently past due on your payments for a credit account, but if you had ever missed or were late on a payment before, records may still show up. Such adverse records can have a larger negative effect on your credit score than you can imagine.
     
  5. Other: Unknown exact category accounts such as 30-day accounts, for example, American Express card.
Revolving Accounts

Payment history made upon your revolving accounts over the past 2 years will be shown in this section. If you want to see further details, you should be able to find a link online that direct you to detailed online reports. You have access to information about your account balances, limits, important dates and payment history for the last 7 years. Most credit reports may provide the following information on your individual accounts:
  1. Creditor Name: Official name of the institution or lender that your account belongs to.
     
  2. Account Number: Identification number for your account. Normally, this is the credit card number for a credit card account. The account number may be concealed partially to protect your privacy.
     
  3. Date Opened and Date Reported: Date opened refers to the month and year the account was opened. Date reported is the last date your creditor updated the credit bureaus on your credit information. Extremely recent activities may take a few days to show up on your account.
     
  4. Responsibility: Your responsibility for the account: individual, joint or co-signer.
     
  5. Monthly Payment: The monthly minimum amount you are required to pay to the account.
     
  6. Credit Limits: The maximum amount that you can borrow from a credit card or other revolving accounts.
     
  7. Balance: The amount owed to date.
     
  8. High Balance: The highest amount you have owed on your credit card account to date. For a credit card, this is the highest balance you have ever been charged. For a mortgage, this is the initial amount of the mortgage.
     
  9. Past Due: The amount of overdue payments when the data was reported. Extremely recent payments may take a few days to show up on your credit report.
     
  10. Late Payments: Summary of your late payments over the past 7 years.
     
  11. Remarks: Notes made by creditors on your account.

 
Real Estate and Installment Accounts

The structure of loan accounts section is similar with that of the revolving accounts. There are only a few items that are slightly different.
  1. Account Number: This is the loan identification number for a mortgage.
     
  2. Type: The account’s specific type. Some common types are real estate mortgages, auto loans or education loans.
     
  3. Terms: The repayment terms you have scheduled with a creditor. This often pertains to loan accounts. For example, auto loan repayment plans for over 36 months.
     
  4. High Credit: The initial loan amount.
Collection Accounts

Collection accounts are any of your accounts turned over to collection agencies in the past 7 years. Depending on the company that provides your credit report, collection accounts can be included in the account history, or shown in a separate section. If a listed collection account does not look familiar, you should contact the credit bureau as well as the collection agency immediately.

When your debt is transferred between different agencies, there may be several records of the same debt. Only one record should be “open” at a time. Most adverse accounts should be removed from your credit report after 7 years, so you should check your credit reports often to make sure.

Collection accounts section apply a unique format:
  1. Creditor Name: The official name of the current company collecting the debt.
     
  2. Account Number: Identification number for your account with the collection agency. It is not the account number on your original debt.
     
  3. Original Creditor: The name of the creditor that you originally owe debt to. This account could be already listed on your credit report such as a credit card; or an account that is not typically included on your report such as a utility payment account or cell-phone payment account. Please read Cautionary Tale of Hidden Accounts for more information.
     
  4. Responsibility: Your responsibility for the account: individual, joint or co-signer.
     
  5. Condition: Current status of your collection record: open, closed or paid.
     
  6. Original Balance: Amount of debt on the original account before it was transferred to collection agencies.
     
  7. Date Opened and Date Reported: Date opened is the time when the account was transferred to the collection agency. Date reported is the date when the collection agency last revised information on this account record.
     
  8. Remarks: Notes about the account that are provided to each credit bureau. For example, it may say that the collector cannot reach you or your debt is unpaid.

Credit Inquiries


This section includes records of businesses that have checked your credit in the last 2 years. The type of inquiry is also listed and it states whether the request is for a person’s, an organization’s or a business’ credit history. Only “hard” credit inquiries are disclosed to your prospective lenders. However your own copy also includes “soft” inquiries. To distinguish between “soft” and “hard’ credit inquiries, please read Soft Pull v Hard Pull.

The following information is listed under each hard inquiry:
  1. Creditor’s Name
     
  2. Date of the Request
     
  3. Inquiry Type: The type of inquiry shows the scope of credit history: whether it is a credit history of a person, or a business.
     
  4. Purpose: Anyone requesting your credit history is required to state the purpose: whether it is for credit transaction or tenant screening.
     
  5. Credit Bureaus that managed the request.
In some cases, for example, when you shop for a mortgage for over a month, credit pull is collected together. So they would only count as one credit pull and would not hurt your credit as repeated pulls would.


Creditor Contacts, Public Records and Personal Statement


Creditor Contacts

This section contains the name and contact information for all the creditors that appear on your credit report. Contact information of creditors who have made inquiries is also included in this section.
  1. The creditors’ addresses are listed to the right of the creditors’ names.
     
  2. Phone numbers are also listed for some creditors.
     
  3. Creditors without listed phone numbers should be contacted by mail.
If you need to contact your creditors to inquire more information or dispute errors, you should always try to contact through phone if it is available. They will inform you if written requests are also required. When you call the creditors, write down the date, time, and the customer service representatives ID. Also, ask for case ID if applicable. This can save you time and efforts during follow-ups.

Public Records

The public records section includes information involving bankruptcies, judgments, tax liens, court records, and overdue child support. Depending on the type of record, it can remain on your credit report for 7-10 years. This section only consists of financial blemishes or disasters; criminal convictions or arrests do not appear in this section.

Often, public records severely harm your credit history. So it is important to avoid any records appearing here; and if some are already shown, you need to keep track of the time until they expire so that you can remove these imperfections in time.

Personal Statement

This is a statement that you can choose to add to your credit report. This statement can be anything from fraud alerts to being unemployed. This is a way for you to add information about your credit history that cannot be determined from the standard credit report.
Last Updated on Tuesday, 21 December 2010 17:32