So What's In Your Credit Report Anyway?

A majority of folks think their credit report just contains a recent list of creditors listing outstanding loan balances and how fast or slow they are at making their payments.

Wrong.

Besides your name, address, date of birth, and social security number, your credit report has all of the following information in it:

• Three to five of the last known addresses you have ever lived and received bills at.
• Aliases or any other nick names or typos you have gone by.
• Your very extended credit history including closed accounts, your payment habits, and maximum credit limits extended to you.
• Notes that may have been filed by you or any of your creditors regarding disputes and or disagreements.
• Information on wage garnishment or liens against any of your assets for what ever reason, and maybe not always valid reasons. This may also include judgments and suits against you.
  
• Past and present employment information.
• Data on how many times your credit file has been looked at, when it was viewed, and by whom.

That's not all. Do you think any of that information may be valuable? That is why even insurance companies are now looking at credit in the form of a score (more to come on that later.) Imagine if either: (A) someone else got a hold of this very private information, or (B) someone else trashed this very valuable information by committing identity theft and fraud against you. Your credit and identity are your financial life blood. If it is getting tainted, you need to know immediately. If it is getting looked at by the wrong people, you need to know immediately. If someone made a mistake when reporting to the credit agencies, you need to know immediately.