#49. Run three free credit reports.

Date Completed: 12/5/2010

Most people close to me know that health and fitness are a big part of my life. This year, I made a commitment to focus on my financial fitness as well. I wanted to take advantage of free opportunities to help. So, I decided to get my three free credit reports this year. Now, you might wonder "Why three?" Because they're free, of course! You're allowed to get one free each year from each of the three main credit agencies. So, if you plan well, and stagger your reviews, you can spread them across the year. The reason it's important to check all three reports is that each creditor may vary in terms of how they report and how often, so you may see different things on each report.  Also, not every creditor reports to every agency, so there is indeed variability.

So you might wonder "Yeah, but what am I really going to find? If I pay my bills on time, why would I need to review my report? No one has ever told me my credit wasn't perfect." You might find it interesting to know that sometimes even if you've cancelled an old credit card, the company may not have reported it as such to one or more of the credit agencies. So, it might look like you actually have more open credit than you really do. This may or may not affect you when you seek funding in the future. If you're like me, all of that is good info, but really, I just want things to be accurate. I'm sure you're all dying to know what I found through this process, so here goes. Of the three reports that I ran (Transunion, Equifax and Experian), only one report was accurate. The other two had several closed accounts still listed as open and active - some from up to 10 years ago. I submitted a simple online "dispute" form for each issue and soon after that, I received notice that the accounts had been closed officially per my request and that my credit reports were updated accordingly. If you would like to run your free reports, there's a centralized link you can use. You will be asked to confirm some details about yourself in order to authenticate your identity, but it's a simple process.