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Mistakes on Your Credit Report

What are the reasons for mistakes on your credit report? Errors occur for a number of reasons, but any negative report, whether correct or incorrect, will have a negative impact on your eligibility for future credit. It is important to stay on top of your credit report to prevent mistakes made by creditors and credit bureaus Equifax, Experian and TransUnion.

Some common reasons for credit report errors include:

• The individual has applied for credit under several different names (i.e. John Doe and Jonathon Doe).
• Someone made a clerical error in entering or reading information (names, social security numbers, addresses, etc.) from a handwritten application.
• Mix ups with common names. For example, there is likely more than one John Smith living in New York City. Often there is the chance that information intended for one John Smith's file might appear on another John Smith's credit report.
• The individual supplied an inaccurate social security number or the number was misread by the creditor.
• Loan or credit card payments were inadvertently applied to the wrong account.

Regardless of the reason, the erroneous information will reflect poorly on your credit file, causing problems when you apply for a job, a mortgage or any other loan. If you find errors, no matter how small, be sure to get them corrected. Be sure you submit your corrections to all three credit bureaus too.