Can I get a
free copy of my own credit report?
You can get a free copy of a report if the lender used that report
to help decide to turn you down for credit, employment, or
insurance within the last 60 days. Some states have laws requiring
the bureaus to provide one free credit report per year.
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What
are all those codes on my credit report?
There should be a separate key or explanation mailed with the
report. Sit down and spend some time to try to read it. If it
still looks like Sanskrit, you might ask a trusted friend to go
over it with you. Or someone in your personnel office at work, or
the dean of students office at your school, or behind the railing
at your bank, might be willing to help you. (It's not their job to
do this, so remember that you're asking a favor. You may be
charged a fee.)
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What
are "inquiries" on my credit report?
Whenever you or anyone else asks for a copy of your credit report,
the request is supposed to be noted as part of your credit
history. If you apply for lots of credit cards in a short time,
this will produce a flurry of "inquiry" notes on your
credit report. Lenders often turn this around and assume that a
flurry of inquiries means you've recently applied for lots of
credit, so they turn you down on that basis even though the
inference is not strictly valid.
If a lender cites
"excessive inquiries" as a reason for turning you down,
this is what has happened. The lender has guidelines for how many
inquiries in what period of time is too many. Unfortunately, you
have no legal right to challenge this policy or even to know what
the specific criteria may be.
Don't give your
name or address to a merchant until you're actually ready to apply
for credit there. Some merchants illegally run credit checks on
you as soon as they have your name and address, even though you
have not applied for credit, to give them an idea of what to sell
you and how. (I'm told many car dealers do this.)
I don't know what
legal recourse, if any, you have against unauthorized inquiries.
If lender A sees
inquiries from B, C, and D but no new accounts, A may assume that
B, C, and D turned you down for credit. Figuring "better safe
than sorry," A may then turn you down just because it assumes
B, C, and D turned you down. Again, this is a judgment call on the
part of A, and you have no legal right to challenge it. If you
have not applied for any credit recently but have been, say,
looking at cars at several dealerships, you might want to let the
lender know this in case it's taking unauthorized inquiries into
account.
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Can
you provide any information on profit and loss charge offs? I would
like to know how that affects my credit report and if it is still a
debt I need to deal with and how it looks to companies that are
checking my credit history.
Profit and loss charge offs are (usually) mostly used by credit
card companies. They write the debt off on their books as uncollectible
and do not spend time, lawyer's fee on collecting
them. They are considered a serious black mark on your credit
report...next to a bankruptcy or foreclosure.
However, even if
these companies aren't actively trying to collect from you, these
debts ARE still owed by you to the company. If you refinance your
house or apply for a loan, most mortgage companies WILL make you
pay these debts off. The reason: these debts can be turned into a
lien against your property.
Liens matter to a
mortgage company because:
-
When you sell
your home, the moneys owed (plus interest) will have to be
paid off in order to clear your title.
-
These debts are
in a higher position than a mortgage, meaning they get paid
off FIRST before the mortgage company gets its money. If they
have to foreclose, and you have lots of liens on your home
plus a mortgage, they could potentially lose thousands of
dollars.
However, if you're
never going to buy a home, or at least not for 7 more years
(that's when the profit and losses will drop off your credit
report), it won't affect you, except for having bad credit. If you
buy a car, you won't be asked to pay these debts off, or any thing
other than real estate. But your credit will really stink for a
long time...good luck getting a low interest rate car loan! Again,
charge offs are almost as bad as having a bankruptcy, plus you
still owe the money.
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Who
makes sure that agencies and creditors follow the laws?
The Federal Trade Commission,
(FTC #202-326-2222) is responsible for enforcing federal
credit laws.
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