One of the most important things in maintaining good financial health is a strong credit score. One of the easiest ways to avoid a bad credit score is regularly checking for credit report errors. How often are there errors on a credit report? Surprisingly all the damn time!
Check For Credit Report Errors Often
It is best practice to check for credit report errors at least once a year. If you can check quarterly, fantastic. Better yet, utilize technology that can monitor your credit report and credit score daily for any errors or anomalies.
An Oregon lawsuit awarding a woman $18.6 million in punitive damages from Equifax is a big reminder why we should check for credit report errors regularly.
Julie Miller contacted Equifax eight times between 2009 to 2011 to fix mistakes including her social security number and birthday on file. She didn’t make much progress.
The Federal Trade Commission found in a 2013 study that 21% of the 2,968 credit reports they investigated contained errors. The survey also found that 5% of the errors represented issues that lead consumers to be denied credit. Various other studies have also shown that 25-30% of credit reports have errors. Pretty high if you ask me.
The purpose of checking your credit score before applying for a mortgage or a loan isn’t only to assess the viability of getting such a loan and figuring out the expected interest rate. The main reason why I check my credit score once a year is because of identity theft and errors. If I’m not taking out credit, someone else better not be using credit in my name!
And just like that, I’m 
Given the housing destruction all throughout the country from 2008-2010, it’s not uncommon for people to have lost their homes to foreclosure or short-sale. One’s credit score usually gets demolished by 200 points or more, and stays that way for 3 years or longer.
I recently had a connect the dots moment I’d like to share with you. In a program called FICO Score Open Access, FICO announced on November 4, 2013 that it plans to allow any lender who uses FICO scores to determine an applicant’s creditworthiness to allow the score to also be available to all applicants for free. So far only Barclaycard US and First Bankcard have signed up, but surely a tremendous amount more credit card companies will sign up once the word gets out to consumers.
The corollary between straight A’s and a perfect credit score is beautiful. With straight A’s in high school, the chances of you getting into a top university with a merit scholarship increases drastically. After all, how many valedictorians do you see go to Chico State?
