Author: Holly Johnson / Source: Wise Bread
Most financial experts suggest reviewing a copy of your credit report at least once a year. Luckily, doing so is fairly easy thanks to an agreement the federal government has with AnnualCreditReport.com. By signing up through this website, you can get a free copy of your credit report from all three credit reporting agencies — Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion — once a year.
According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), checking your credit report is the best way to find actual errors and mistakes. They even note that you could spread your free credit reports from the three agencies throughout the year so you can check for errors every few months — for example, getting your Experian report in May, your Equifax report in August, and your TransUnion report in December.
Get errors fixed immediately
By checking the details on your credit report frequently, you could discover mistakes early and before they do much damage. If you do find a mistake and get it corrected, you could also see your credit score rise at a rapid pace.
But how fast can the needle move? It really depends. Recently, I chatted with someone whose credit score surged 42 points within a month after they discovered incorrect late payments on their credit report. They took the steps outlined by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to dispute the incorrect data, then watched their score bounce back once it was removed. As the FTC notes, credit reporting agencies have 30 days to investigate disputes, which is likely why this person’s score bounced back so fast.
Barry Paperno, a former consumer affairs manager for FICO and founder of the blog SpeakingofCredit.com, says that this scenario — where someone’s score goes up within a matter of weeks — isn’t that surprising.
Your credit score doesn’t have a memory, meaning that each time it’s requested, current information is used to present your score for that day. “So if you remove negative information, it’s as it if never happened,” Paperno said.
Whatever negative information or marks against you don’t exist anymore, so they don’t drag your score down. Paperno also says that, in this particular…
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