Everyone needs to take advantage of the new Federal Free Annual Credit report program, and everyone means you! Why? Because the odds are about 4 to 1 against your credit report being accurate at all 3 bureaus. Thats one of the things the big three credit reporting agencies dont want you to know. A recent study did random pulls of credit reports from Equifax, Experian and Transunion, with the consumers involved prior permission. They then contacted each consumer and verified all information on those reports. In 79% of the cases, there were one or more errors on the reports from at least one agency! This indicates that there is about a 4 out of 5 chance that there may be an error on your credit report. Some estimates put the rate as low as 1 out of 3, while another puts the estimate at 90%, but no matter what the actual percentage is, even the low end is cause for concern.
Now, some of these errors that are found are pretty harmless, such as incorrect past addresses or employers, but a lot them are not. And many of these errors can have a negative impact on the consumer’s credit scores. This means you could be turned down for a loan or credit card, or charged...