In general, 80% of all credit reports have one or more errors in them. All errors—even those that seem harmless such as the wrong address or multiple employers—need to be corrected.
Take the following steps to review and monitor your credit report:
- Order your report by visiting annualcreditreport.com. Once each year you can obtain a free copy of your credit report from all three of the credit reporting agencies – Experian®, Equifax® and TransUnion®.
- Review your report to make sure your personal and employment information, account statuses, credit limits and payment history are correct.
- If you spot an error on your report, contact Equifax, Experian or TransUnion (based on where the error appears) to begin the dispute process. Note that this process varies by credit reporting agency, so contact the specific bureau for details.
- Once you get the errors corrected, keep a copy of any correspondence and review your old report against a new one to make sure old errors have not resurfaced on your report.
