Credit reports sometimes have mistakes

While credit report errors frequently are unimportant ones, up to one quarter of reports have errors that are significant enough to stop an individual from receiving credit. According to the law, the credit bureaus are expected to respond to a query about mistakes within thirty days, but in actuality, it can take much longer than that. A prominent poll suggests that nearly 80% of credit reports have mistakes. The credit report problems that take the longest to repair are those where the lender insists that the information is valid, even if the customer can prove otherwise. A few of the harder cases frequently involve mistaken identities or identity or credit theft, or just plain, old, run of the mill typographical errors.

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Most lenders rely, maybe too much, on information contained in a credit report. If credit report information is not correct, it can require months or years to repair, and meanwhile, an individual's ability to take out a loan is seriously compromised.

What happens when credit record information is wrong? These days, everyone, or almost everyone, is aware that their financial histories are contained in information assembled by the three main credit bureaus - Trans Union, Experian and Equifax. Credit background information, sold to lenders or creditors as a credit report, tells lenders what they should know before they determine whether or not to loan money or extend credit to a person.

Fixing some mistakes can take a while, due to the complexity of the information involved. Many, if not most frequent errors are quickly repaired; easily repaired issues involve incorrect addresses, ages, phone numbers, and so on.

Wrong identity - Living may seem to be a simple thing to prove; after all, a telephone call from the individual should demonstrate evidence to the contrary, but that doesn't seem to be the case. If the credit bureaus think you are deceased, you are out of luck, as no one will loan money to someone who is dead. There have been examples of consumers who couldn't get loans because the credit bureaus believed they were dead. Most of the time, credit reports that show the person is dead are a case of mistaken identity, but if there's a death certificate involved, it may take phone calls, lawyers and even lawsuits to resolve.


There does not seem to be any Government legislation in sight to help straighten this situation out, but it would be nice. With increased reliance on computer generated fiduciary reports looming larger in our lives, the least the bureaus could do is help to make sure that information is accurate. Legislation to fix the problem of errors seems unlikely, though, as The Federal government is these days pretty happy with some of their recent financial legislation, such as the strangely named Bankruptcy legislation. As these difficulties are being sorted out, the individual's credit score is hurt, and he can't acquire a loan, or a charge card, or possibly a job or an apartment.