Detrimental Errors on your credit report
FACT: 70% to 80% of consumer credit reports have errors.
The FCC did a study and found that 7 out of 10 credit reports have some sort of detrimental error(s).
In addition, a new study, conducted by the National Association of State Public Interest Research Groups, 79 percent of all credit reports contain some type of error – and 25 percent contain such serious errors that those individuals could be denied credit.
Here are other significant findings:
- 54 percent contained inaccurate personal information such as misspelled names, wrong Social Security numbers, inaccurate birth dates, inaccurate information about a spouse and out of date address. For example, one credit report listed a man’s business partner as his spouse.
- 30 percent listed “closed” accounts as “open.” For example, listing a student loan that was paid off years ago as still outstanding. Another report listed several credit cards, a mortgage and an auto loan all as open.
- 22 percent of reports had the same mortgage or loan listed twice. This mistake often occurs when loans are serviced or sold.
- 8 percent of reports simply didn’t list major credit, loan, mortgage or other accounts that could be used to demonstrate the creditworthiness of a consumer.
You might not care right at this moment unless you were applying for a loan or a job, but here’s the rub…
It can take up to 6 months to legally remove those errors.
Are you certain you’ll have 6 months’ notice the next time you’re going to need your credit?
Chances are you won’t. That’s why we always recommend auditing your credit every 3 months and removing the errors as soon as they occur.
Who knows if you have errors, but according to this new study, chances are you do.