Credit Report
Credit report is a summary of your credit activities as it pertains to your credit accounts. It shows how you have handled those accounts with your payment history. It is the history of your credit. Credit reports are also called or known as credit files.
Potential lenders and creditors use your credit report to decide whether to extend you credit and at what terms if they approve. Potential landlords may also use your credit to determine whether they will lease to you are not. Some employers will look at credit to make a employment decision concerning the applicants.
Credit reports may also used companies that you may apply to receive their services or purchase their products such as utilities, mobile phones and furniture or electronics. Insurance companies may use credit report to determine insurance premiums.
Credit reports may have the following sections of information.
- Personal or identifying information
This section will include personal information such as your name, address, phone number, date of birth and social security number.
- Credit Account information
This information is reported to credit bureaus by your lenders and creditors and includes the types of accounts (for example, a credit card, department store card, mortgage, student loan, or vehicle loan), the date those accounts were opened, your credit limit or loan amount, account balances, and your payment history. It may not contain all your credit accounts for several reasons, such as closed accounts that have dropped off your report after a certain period of time, or accounts not reported to credit bureaus by lenders.
- Negative Accounts information
This make include collection accounts, bankruptcies and public records such tax liens or child support.
- Iniquiries
There are two types of inquiries: Soft and Hard.
Soft inquiries are the result of companies extending you pre-approved offers of credit or insurance, or your current lenders and creditors conducting periodic reviews of your accounts (known as “account reviews.”) Soft inquiries do not impact credit scores. Regularly checking your credit reports can help you monitor your credit accounts and enable you to recognize inaccurate or incomplete information, or suspicious activity that may signal potential identity theft.
Hard inquiries occur when companies or individuals review your credit report because you have applied for credit or a service – for example, a new loan, a credit card, or a mobile phone contract. Hard inquiries remain on your credit report for up to two years and may negatively impact credit scores, although the impact is usually only one year.
