Credit Report/Rating

[PrincessKsMom]

How do I get a copy of my credit report? I don't mind paying for it, but I've been to the Experian site and the Freecreditrerport.com and I'm a little annoyed. When you get your credit report you have to agree to a trial of a service they provide. You have 7 days to cancel, but they say that 7 days may not be enough time to gather what they need. They then charge you $14.95 a month for them to monitor your credit. And the TransUnion website isn't even a secure site. I'm seriously angry about this.

My car insurance renewal came and it said my credit caused us to get a charged a higher premium. It gave information to contact LexisNexis for the credit report. LN will send it to you within 10 business days. Today I get a letter from LN saying they don't actually have it, but they will request it from the actual credit reporting agencies, and that I should receive it within 2 weeks. So a month to get a copy? And then I go to the sites and they want to charge me?

So what am I not understanding? Does anyone have any personal experience and information they can share?

 

[phorsenuf]

Go to annualcreditreport.com You can get a free copy every year through that site.

 

[PrincessKsMom]

Thank you. I'll check into it.

 

[jlewisinsyr]

Also, just so you know an Insurance Score is not the same as a FICO score. They are somewhat in line with each other, but each count things differently.

Have you added any significant amounts of debt/loans, this would include a mortgage?

One other comment, there is a free site that estimates your FICO score, Auto Insurance score and Vantage score, it's called CreditKarma.com. It's free to use and although it only pulls one credit company report, it can give you a general direction of your credit score. If you compare your credit reports from annualcreditreport.com and find no major discrepancies, it also will give you a good feel where your score would be overall.

 

[Planogirl]

Sometimes a company stating that they raised your premiums due to your credit report is just an automatic response. They could be raising rates for many reasons.

By the way, the credit bureaus will not know why they raised your rates. They just provide information and the companies decide what to do with it.

 

[PrincessKsMom]

Also, just so you know an Insurance Score is not the same as a FICO score. They are somewhat in line with each other, but each count things differently.

Have you added any significant amounts of debt/loans, this would include a mortgage?

No. I think the problem is MIL and I have the same name (different middle initials) and also live in the same house. We rent the second floor apartment. She has a habit of not paying bills ontime. I even get emails that belong to her. She signed up for a casino in Atlantic City and gave them her email address, and yet, somehow, I get them. When I purchased my car three years ago my credit rating was in the 800s (or was it upper 700s?).

 

[PrincessKsMom]

Here are the reasons they provided:

number of retail accounts (I have closed one and almost paid off another);
lack of reported information on oil company accounts (I don't have any);
number of accounts reported in last 12 months (none -- I pay early);
lack of reported information on sales finance accounts (no idea what that means).

 

[Planogirl]

The last one sounds like general loans.

Keep in mind that the insurance company could have changed their parameters too. Did you get an actual score too? If so what kind? There are many types of scores with FICO being the standard for most companies.

 

[jlewisinsyr]

No. I think the problem is MIL and I have the same name (different middle initials) and also live in the same house. We rent the second floor apartment. She has a habit of not paying bills ontime. I even get emails that belong to her. She signed up for a casino in Atlantic City and gave them her email address, and yet, somehow, I get them. When I purchased my car three years ago my credit rating was in the 800s (or was it upper 700s?).

From a credit perspective, unless someone is using your SS#, misdirected mail or confusion on who you are from your MIL shouldn't matter when it comes to a direct credit history pull.

 

[jlewisinsyr]

The last one sounds like general loans.

Keep in mind that the insurance company could have changed their parameters too. Did you get an actual score too? If so what kind? There are many types of scores with FICO being the standard for most companies.

Insurance companies do not use FICO scores.

 

[Planogirl]

Insurance companies do not use FICO scores.

I got the impression that she might have pulled her own score. I might have misread.

 

[Planogirl]

From a credit perspective, unless someone is using your SS#, misdirected mail or confusion on who you are from your MIL shouldn't matter when it comes to a direct credit history pull.

All three credit bureaus spend a lot of time cleaning up combined files. For some reason data from other people ends up on the wrong credit report.

 

[PrincessKsMom]

Right now I'm looking at one of the report. Yep, it's a negative for one of my MIL's old accounts. I've never had a Speigel account, yet there it is. How do they screw this up when it's all supposed to be done by Social Security numbers?

 

[jlewisinsyr]

Right now I'm looking at one of the report. Yep, it's a negative for one of my MIL's old accounts. I've never had a Speigel account, yet there it is. How do they screw this up when it's all supposed to be done by Social Security numbers?

I don't want to alarm you, but is it possible she actually opened the account under your SS#, fraudulently?

 

[a1tinkfans]

I don't want to alarm you, but is it possible she actually opened the account under your SS#, fraudulently?

 

[PrincessKsMom]

I don't want to alarm you, but is it possible she actually opened the account under your SS#, fraudulently?

No. Would never happen. She and FIL are quite comfortable and she doesn't have access to my information.

Interesting, I've reviewed all three credit reports -- 1 negative, her Speigel account. And it was in the negative twice -- once in 2007 and once in 2008.

The oil account the insurance company referenced was closed in the late 90s. There were a few accounts that I believe were my MILs, which have all been closed and there was no negative activity on any of them. The one other interesting thing was a mortgage that I apparently took at the age of 20. That was also MIL and it was paid in full years ago and never had any negative activity. I think it's time to look for a new auto insurance company. There's nothing here they can use against me.

 

[Planogirl]

FYI - some companies don't report using social security numbers or they report the wrong ones. There are some people that don't want ssn's reported and I bet that the credit files would really be a mess if that happened.