DEBT MANAGEMENT

So take a red pen, grab a cup of coffee, and have a seat. Today is the day you review your credit report. Verify that your social security number is correct. Confirm every detail of your personal information. Then look at all the rest. As you go down the form, line by line, make sure that loans and debts listed are actually yours. If you find a twenty dollar bill on the street that isn’t yours, great. If you find items on your credit report that are not yours, not good at all.

If there are any judgments on the credit report, verify that they are indeed against you. You should know if you have had a judgment against you. Check for closed accounts. Maybe you had a car lease that was closed three years ago and it still shows as an open account. These are the types of things to be on the lookout for.

If you find an error reported by a creditor, contact that creditor directly. If they do not give you the time of day to attempt to resolve your issue, or even pretend to care, you can contact the credit reporting agency. Each of the three credit bureaus has ways to submit your dispute online, which you may recall seeing when you were on their websites, getting your credit report.

If you have a lot of financial activity, your credit report can be quite lengthy. If you do not have your own credit reports to look at right now while we are talking about this stuff, get a sample report to use as a guide. You can view one at the websites of the credit reporting agencies. First, the easy part. Check your personal information; your name, your middle initial, etc. If you come across any mistakes in this section and you might notify that credit reporting agency directly.

You would be amazed how often someone else’s information turns up on your credit report, simply for having the same name as you, the only difference being the middle initial. I was in line behind a man at the airport last week who was being delayed at passport control because of a similar situation. He even shard the same middle name, not just the initial, as this other person. My gentleman knew the other man’s name, address, and details, even his hair color, because he has run into problems for the last several years, due to having the same name as other guy. I imagine there are many persons out there having the same name of me, but don’t be so sure that no one else has your name, even if you do have an uncommon name. You want to be sure only your information is showing on your report.