Making Sense of Your Credit Reports

The reports you have received should have some instructions to
help you understand most of the details reported.

Using a mark up copy, start by error checking all of your personal
information at the top of the report; name, name changes, address,
previous addresses, employment, previous employment, SS#, birthdate,
and any other information. Get a yellow and a blue highlighter. High-
light errors, misspellings, and typos in yellow. Then mark all negative,
adverse or derogatory items in blue.

Do the same thing for the public records & judgments section, the
inquiries section and finally the consumer credit accounts section.

You will likely find a number of entries that you don't recognize
or that have some incorrect details. Some of the items may be
accounts that report to the agencies using a different office or
corporate name than the one you might be familiar with. So give it
a couple days of review and thought before you are certain that an
entry truly doesn't belong on the report.

Clues to determining if items are in fact your accounts are; checking
the start date and last activity date of a reported account as well
as the item's account number.

Make a list of all the items that show discrepencies. It might be
useful to set up a spreadsheet for this list. It will be an excellent
tool for tracking the repair process as you move forward.