jolecaje-ga:
Thank you for your Question. I hope that you are asking this out of
simple interest, rather than due to there being problems with your
credit report. If so, I will provide some information in this Answer
that may help with that that.
First, to answer your query about how information gets onto your
credit report in the first place, I would recommend you read this
excellent article on the How Stuff Works site:
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How Credit Reports Work
http://money.howstuffworks.com/credit-report.htm
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From that article, you will see how the credit bureaus work with
lenders (such as banks, credit card companies, even landlords) to
collect and make available to other lenders information about the
amount of credit/debt you hold, how you have handled that credit/debt
in the past, and any information you (or your employer) may have
provided to any of the lenders regarding your income. Generally, any
information that you provide on a loan or credit card application
form, can and most likely will end up in a record at one or all of the
credit bureau companies.
You can find out more from the Bankrate.com website:
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Your credit: the basics
http://www.bankrate.com/brm/green/cc/crdt2a.asp
(multiple pages, scroll to the bottom for link to next page)
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From the Bankrate.com information, you will have seen how it is
possible for lenders to make typographical or keyboarding errors that
can result in the wrong information ending up on your report. For
example, the Social Security Number is often used as an identifier by
some lenders. A simple keying error while entering your SSN into a
data system, can result in the wrong information being sent to the
credit bureaus. Likewise, if you have a relatively common last name
and first initial, it is possible for the wrong information to end up
in your report. As mentioned in the Bankrate.com article, sometimes
even something like a Jr. or Sr. suffix can cause errors in a credit
report. In rare cases, data feeds from lenders reporting to the credit
bureaus can be corrupted or improperly formatted, resulting in the
possibility that some information may be attributed to your record
when it actually belongs to someone else. While the credit bureaus and
the lenders would emphasize that this is extremely rare, it is
depressingly true that any time information has to be transmitted from
one data system to another, that data can be corrupted. As there are
few checks and balances in place to verify if the transmitted data is
valid, it is up to you as the affected party to detect errors and
report them to the credit bureaus.
Again, as both the How Stuff Works and Bankrate.com articles mention,
the law is on your side when errors are detected. Unfortunately,
that's all it is... on your side. It is still up to you to request
that the credit bureaus and lenders correct any errors that may exist
in your credit report, and that they verify back to you that the
corrections have been made. As the articles state, this can take weeks
of phone calls, e-mails, and regular mail before you can be sure that
the errors have been fixed.
In an increasing number of cases, you and your credit report may also
become the victims of an identity thief. Identify theft is a growing
problem, as acknowledged on the Equifax website:
http://www.equifax.com/
(see banner ad on left)
https://www.econsumer.equifax.com/consumer/forward.ehtml?forward=idtheft_ifyouravictim
Identity thieves typically steal enough vital information about you
(from a discarded credit card receipt, or even from stealing your
unopened mail) to be able to impersonate you with at least one lender.
Then, building on their successful transaction with the deceived
lender (such as a credit card company), they then proceed to take out
other credit instruments using your name and information, causing your
credit report to take a major beating once the credit payments become
due. Recovering from such a crime can take years. Again, even though
the law is on your side, there is little help available even though
the problem has become very well known in recent years.
I hope that you found this information helpful. Please do let me know
if you require any clarification to this Answer before you rate and
accept this Answer.
Regards,
aht-ga
Google Answers Researcher |
