How To Tuesday...Who Wants To Be Me?

Evidently three people.

Actually, they didn't want to actually be me, they just wanted to be me financially.

I am extremely good with money.  I love percentages, interest, payoffs, debt-to-income ratios... bawah bawah bawah.... feel free to insert Charlie Brown teacher's voice here.  I just love it all.  I even love paying my bills. Sickening I know.

Because of this, I have had my identity stolen three times.  All through the mail, and all without my knowing.  Luckily, there wasn't too much damage done, and while there was a lot of paper work to do, everything was reversible. In the process of doing this three times, I learned A LOT about credit reporting agencies.  I have become the resident go to momma for credit cleaning for family and friends, pulling reports, drafting letters, and cleaning up debts they never knew existed. And why didn't they know they had $95K in debt that wasn't theirs? Some because they weren't paying attention, and others because they simply haven't pulled their credit report recently... or ever.

So today, being the first installment of How To Tuesday at Christie's (go link up, she's awesome... she'll even put out the guest towels for you...) 

I have decided to teach you all how, and where to go to get your FREE credit reports.  Yes, FREE.  You're entitled to one from each company, per year.  You don't need Suzy Orman, just some free time and a whole lot of paper.

Deep breath...Ready?

First, get all of your existing credit cards and/or loans together.  You'll need this to help answer some verification questions later.  I find that this is easier to verify than places of employment becasue if the information doesn't match exactly, it will not allow you access.  (IE: the Post Office can be listed as USPS, U.S.P.S., The United States Post Office... well you get the idea..)

Next go to this website:

https://www.annualcreditreport.com/cra/index.jsp

Don't waste your time going to these guys.


They're best for entertainment purposes only. (It's free until you get to the end, where you'll have to sign up for something.)  The above link is free. But if you love these guys like I do, feel free to click on the arrow and sing your little hearts out.

Mmmkay... moving on...

Go to each of the three main credit reporting companies. READ the instructions on how to pull each one.  You need to feed through the prompts the way they tell you to, or it will knock you off, and you'll have to get it via snail mail.

The three credit reporting companies are...

Experian
Equifax
Transunion

Every time you want something from a bank, a car, a credit card, a loan, a mortgage, they pull one or more of these reports.  It's important to know what's on each one of them to ensure that they have the right information for lending.  It is how they determine if they will give you the money and at what percent interest.  You need to pull all three because each one of them can contain different information.  Be prepared, most reports are 20 pages or more.  Staple each report as it finishes, and then go through and highlight anything you don't recognize.  This could be something that's not yours, an ex spouse's that was not removed, a junior/senior mistake, medical bills paid off but still showing in collections, bad addresses, bad names, or something that one bank has sold off to another.  Look at revolving credit open vs. closed, and available lines.

Investigate those things.

Call the companies.  Ask questions.  Write the necessary documents to have them removed or brought into better standing. Follow up.

Once all the paperwork is done, and letters have been sent to you stating that the issues have been cleared up, pull your credit reports again.  Make sure they're accurate.

It's a lot of work. Yes.

But once it's done, it's as easy as pulling your report each year to ensure nothings changed.

Once you've complete this, you can pay to get your credit score, or FICO.  But I'll caution you, each company uses it's own scale.  So a score of 850 on Transunion may only be a 670 with Experian, or a 700 with Equifax.  So while it's good to know your "number" it's more important that your information is accurate on your credit reports instead, and doing that costs nothing. (FICO is the name of a company who developed the software for rating finances, and not all of the companies use the actual FICO software.  Experian is the only one who publicly says that they do, where as Transunion and Equifax use other companies that use software based off of FICO software.)

In other words, while it's handy to know, it's not necessary, and definitely not worth your $15-$30.

So, this concludes today's lesson of "pain in the butt finances a'la Julianna"....

(who by no means is a financial advisor or magical money genius, so please do not send me hate mail, or hold me accountable for your printer blowing up, or if someone finds out about that secret account no one wants to talk about)