How to Deal with Credit Reporting Agencies

Credit reporting agencies or credit bureaus collect and store your credit record and sell the information to financial institutions that are interested in learning about your credit history. As they hold the key to your credit rating learning how to deal with the three major credit bureaus is one of the best ways to protect your credit.

While you can live without good credit, a bad credit rating will certainly affect you negatively throughout your life. Keep in mind that this information is about you. You have the rights to obtain your report to make sure that it is accurate because accurate credit reporting is the beginning of a good credit score.

The 3 Major Credit Bureaus

There are 3 major credit report agencies that collect and assemble your credit record. Here is a list of the organizations:

Equifax
www.equifax.com
P.O. Box 740241
Atlanta, GA 30374-0241
1-800-685-1111

Experian
www.experian.com
P.O. Box 2104
Allen, TX 75013-0949
1-888-EXPERIAN (397-3742)

Trans Union
www.transunion.com
P.O. Box 1000
Chester, PA 19022
1-800-916-8800

Credit Reporting Agencies and Your Credit Report

When you order a copy of your credit report the credit bureaus will send you a copy of your report. Once you receive them carefully go through the document to see whether there have been mistakes on your report. If you find errors contact the necessary agencies to get these corrected.

Make sure that you get the details of the person who is handling your request. Also, always remember to keep copies of all the correspondence you have in case there are problems again in the future.

When it comes to an important thing such as your financial position never assume that people have done their job correctly. Many consumer debtors reported paying higher interest charges for years simply because they were unaware that the errors on their credit reports giving them a lower rating.

So, if credit reporting companies make changes be sure that they are as same as your expectation. Sometimes just clearing up some of these errors and issues might be enough to allow you to improve your credit score. With updated credit reports you may then start evaluating your new financial status for further credit rating improvement.

The Fair Credit Reporting Act and Your Rights

Recent amendments to the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) place additional requirements on credit report bureaus, businesses that supply information about you to credit bureaus and lenders that use your reports. Under the FCRA, both the credit bureau and the information supplier have responsibilities for correcting inaccurate or incomplete items in your report.

So, you can engage in effective credit repair that credit repair services charge high fees for by learning to properly deal with credit report bureaus. If you understand the responsibilities of the credit reporting agencies under the FCRA, you can take steps to increase your credit score and have access to lower interest rate loans.

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