You may have been turned down for a loan recently and were told by the bank that your credit was just not good enough.  Would this concern you, if it were the case?  It should.  They’re essentially telling you that you’re too risky and they don’t necessarily believe that they’ll be getting their money back once they lend it to you.  If you’ve always done well with making loan payments on time and you just don’t understand how you could have bad credit then it may be time to get a copy of your Credit report online.  You can do this from a number of sites on the Internet or by contacting the credit reporting bureau’s directly. They are TransUnion, Equifax and Experian.  These three agencies are responsible for collecting and then compiling all credit related information about you, me and everyone else.

I plan on doing a walkthrough soon on Debit versus Credit about how to get a free copy of your credit report online.  In the meantime it’s really not too difficult.  There are a number of websites that will allow you to get a copy of your credit report.  Just be weary of sites that try to charge you or make you sign up for product trials.  Unless you find the product useful it’s best to try another site that doesn’t do so.

Once you’ve ordered a copy of your credit report you should inspect it and make sure that there are no inaccuracies on it.  If anything looks wrong you can and you should dispute it.  For example if I were to order a copy of my credit report from Experian and it said that I lived in Oregon I would immediately question this and dispute it with Experian.  I have never lived in Oregon and thus it would be bad if my credit report were to list such.  Likewise it would be upsetting if I had never missed a payment on my credit card yet it was reporting that I was 60 days past due with it.  This would seriously affect my credit score and I would dispute it immediately because it is completely untrue.

These are the types of things that you should dispute.  Truthfully if anything looks incorrect or wrong at all then you ought to dispute it.  Your credit report is your financial lifeline and if anything is wrong with it you may run into some issues in the future.  Disputing inaccuracies is quite easy.  Follow the links for each of the different agencies: Experian, Equifax, TransUnion.

Good luck and if you have any questions or comments I’d love to hear from you!