FICO Changes May Ease Credit Access
Recent changes to the way Fair Isaac computes people’s credit score are welcomed, long overdue and benefit borrowers, creditors and real estate markets across the country. The revision to the credit score algorithm that eliminates medical bills from consideration is especially appropriate given the high incidence of mistakes and miscommunication. What a lot of people don’t know is that creditors report information to the 3 major credit reporting agencies on a voluntary and inconsistent basis which unfortunately means that mistakes are made all the time; AND the 3 big credit reporting agencies : Experian, Transunion and Equifax, really don’t have much of an incentive to fix mistakes on your credit report. The good news is that you can take control of the situation and force their hand ….Here’s how you do it, the first thing you need to do is get a free credit report from each of the 3 credit bureaus—you can do that by going to annualcreditreport.com-they also have a toll free number which is 877-322-8228. You need to take the time to go through your credit reports as soon as you get them, because there’s a good chance there’s inaccurate info in them–this may have been the result of something as trivial as a clerical error or data entry error—who knows, as I said, the credit bureaus generally don’t care whether there are errors on your credit report. Unfair as it is, if there is a mistake on your credit report and you don’t make them fix it, then you are the one that will suffer. So what do you do when you find a mistake on your credit report? Here’s what you do: You should directly dispute a credit report error either in writing using overnight return-receipt mail or by going to that specific credit bureau’s website making sure when you do that you reference the file# you’ll find in that credit bureau’s free credit report.