Whether you’re searching for a loan or trying to buy your first home, problems on your credit score can make things difficult to say the least. If you’ve been finding your applications are either rejected or returned with extremely high interest rates, you may have an issue on your credit rating, even if you thought you were being responsible with your money. The best thing to do in this case is to obtain a copy of your own credit score and check to see what’s on it, so as to ensure that there haven’t been any entries that are inaccurate or incorrect. Mistakes happen every day to thousands of people across the country.
Common Problems with Your Credit Score
If you feel like there may be something entered incorrectly on your credit rating, it’s hard to know where to start looking. Once you’ve obtained a copy of your credit report, you should recognize everything on there. Common mistakes include:
- Human errors recording payments (if someone misses updating a payment, it can affect your credit score)
- Previous relationships (an ex-spouse could still be inaccurately listed as your spouse, and his/her poor choices could bring your credit score down)
- Company Errors (companies occassionaly accidentally enter in the wrong social security number for an account, and that can cause major upsets in a person’s credit score)
Identity theft is, of course, another problem that could be causing your credit score to go haywire. This is perhaps the most time-consuming problem to fix, but the good news is that identity theft is getting harder and harder for criminals, so the problem is still pretty rare. Still, even if you think you have great credit, you should check your credit score once a year to ensure your identity hasn’t been stolen (or there aren’t any other mistakes).
If’ve Found a Problem. What’s Next?
Once you’ve uncovered the problem, you need to gather evidence of your claim. If you’ve been a victim of a missed submission, gather your receipt of payment, online banking statement and any other proof you have of payment. Submit a letter, in writing, with your full name, birthday and social security number. You should also include any maiden names that you may have gone by. Identify the issue that you have, the proof that you’ve collected for your claims, a copy of the record that you have received and highlight the issues for easy access. Keep copies of everything you submit, and then mail the package to the agency via registered mail. Don’t ever send your originals as you may have to submit these details several times before you get your desired result.
You can also work with a credit counselor to fix the problem. These advisors will work on your behalf to prove that there are mistakes on your credit report. Since they know the system, often this is a faster credit repair option, but keep in mind that in both cases, you can expect to spend a few months fixing the mistakes you find on your report and it could be a few months after that until you credit rebounds.
Allison writes with CreditScore.net, where you’ll find more advice on dealing with mistakes on your credit report, as well as tips for building good credit and otherwise raising your score.
