Home: Debt Management Warnings: Credit Reports - Update

Three-Digit Credit Score Not Affected

The following information was reported on July 14, 2002 in the Palm Beach Post by *Liz Pulliam Weston:

Credit counseling in the vast majority of cases does not affect the three-digit credit reports score, which many lenders use to evaluate your credit worthiness. Your creditors might put a note in your credit report saying you're participating in a debt-repayment plan, but the lending credit score, Fair, Isaac, & co., ignores that information when computing your score.

Once you've completed the plan, your creditors remove the notation and no one looking at your credit report would know that you were ever on a repayment plan.

*Liz Pulliam Weston is a contributor to the Los Angeles Times.

Credit Reports Overview

Credit reports, also known as consumer reports and credit checks, are documented records of background information, credit activity/inactivity, and credit payment history. Credit reports are tracked and maintained by a person’s social security number.

Credit reports are provided to companies for many reasons, specific purposes and are permitted by law providing that permission has been obtained and granted. Most of the credit reports information is provided directly from companies you do business with. Usually, credit grantors, landlords, and employers view credit reports, with its main purpose being: to help inquiring parties quickly and objectively make a decision and determines one’s level of payment history performance. 

If you are one of the millions of people residing within the United States who has obtained a charge account, car or student loan, home mortgage, rental apartment, insurance and in many cases employment, then a credit report and information about you is probably stored in a consumer credit database. 

Credit Reports can be obtained by any credit-reporting agency or by a credit bureau. A credit-reporting agency gathers information such as where you live and work, what legal actions have been filed, what bills you have, and how you pay those bills. This information about you is then sold to creditors, employers, insurers, and other businesses. Credit-reporting agencies are private businesses and are not government agencies. However, The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) enforced by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and your state Attorney General clearly states how credit-reporting agencies must conduct their business, and what your rights are as a consumer.  

Credit Reports – Information Contained 

Credit reports contain the following information:  

Credit Reports - Identifying information: *Name, spouses name, current and previous addresses, telephone number, Social Security number, date of birth, current and previous employers. *This information is only on your copy of your credit report and does not appear within the version provided to the inquiring party. Information provided for credit reports are based on credit applications. 

Credit Reports - Credit information: Specific information about each account such i.e., date opened, credit limit or loan amount, balance, monthly payment and payment pattern during the past several years. Credit reports also state whether anyone else besides you – such as -- your spouse or cosigner -- is responsible for paying the account. This information is provided to credit bureaus from companies that do business with you.

Credit reports that contain open accounts, and positive credit information remains within your credit report indefinitely. Most negative and closed account information could remain within your credit report for up to seven years. 

Credit Reports - Public record information: Federal bankruptcy records, state and county court records of tax liens, monetary judgments and, in some states, overdue child support is all obtainable through public records and is included within credit reports.

Bankruptcy information can remain on your credit report for up to 10 years with other public record information remaining for up to seven years. 

Credit Reports - Inquiries: the names of those who obtained information about your credit history.

Credit Reports with Inquiries that you initiated when you perhaps applied for a new credit card, become a part of your credit report, and may be considered by those who review your credit history. Inquiries can remain within credit reports for up to two years.

Credit reports with Inquiries resulting from unsolicited offers of credit and perhaps monitoring conducted by credit grantors of your current credit accounts appear only on your copy of your credit report and will remain on the report from one to two years.

Also, your copy of your credit report will include the names and addresses of those who inquired. 

Credit Reports - Information Not Contained

Credit Reports do not contain, and does not collect, data about race, religious preference, medical history, personal lifestyle, political preference, friends, criminal record or any other information unrelated to credit. Nor is there information about your checking or savings accounts. 

All credit reports assists employers, creditors, and insurers with the decision-making process. So if you have two credit cards, a car loan, and mortgage, each one could be reporting your payment history to a credit bureau and this information will be added to your file.

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