What to Look for On Your Credit Report

You’ve probably heard that checking your credit report makes good financial sense and that it is a smart move to keep tabs on your credit report by using monitoring services such as IDENTITY GUARD®, CreditProtectX3®, or CreditProtect®. While you may know that you’re supposed to check your credit report, however, you may not be sure what exactly you should look for.

What to Check On Your Credit Report

When you have your credit report in front of you, there are a few key things to look for:

• Do you have any late payments or judgments against you or other negative information? If you do, this can significantly lower your score. If the late payments or negatives are legitimate, then you’ll usually just have to try to improve your borrowing behavior going forward while waiting for the negatives to drop off so your score can improve. If the information is incorrect, you’ll need to contact the credit bureaus and, perhaps, try to get in touch with your creditor to see why misinformation is being reported.

• Are there accounts you do not recognize or mistakes on your report? If there are accounts that do not belong to you this can be a sign of identity theft, and you need to take action right away to find out where and when those accounts were opened. If there are simple mistakes, contact the credit bureau and your creditor to have the mistakes corrected.
  

By checking your credit report regularly using IDENTITY GUARD®, CreditProtectX3®, or CreditProtect®, you can keep tabs on what information is being reported, and you can work to catch mistakes or problems as soon as they happen so your credit isn’t damaged through no fault of your own.

To learn more about your credit report, credit scores, credit score monitoring, or what determines a good credit score, visit Credit Report and Score Basics.