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The Fair Credit Reporting Act was originally passed in 1970 but was recently amended in 2003 to provide additional consumer protection and privacy. Discover the top 5 benefits that came from these amendments and how they help you.

The Fair Credit Reporting act was amended in 2003 to include new laws for consumer protection and access to credit reporting agency information. The act that amended the Fair Credit Reporting Act in 2003 is known as the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act and included laws which give consumers more transparency with regards to their credit report as well as more security from credit report abuse and even identity theft. Below you’ll find the top 5 benefits of the amendments made to the Fair Credit Reporting Act and how they help you.

#1: Free Credit Reports Every Year

By far the best thing about the Fair Credit Reporting Act is the fact that consumers are now entitled to a free credit report from each of the three major credit reporting agencies once a year. You can request your free federal credit reports by mail, phone or by visiting the official website at AnnualCreditReport.com.

You can receive all three reports at once from Experian, Equifax and TransUnion or view them one at a time to split them up over the course of the year to help keep tabs on your credit profile. The website can walk you through the process of obtaining your free credit report from each of the bureaus.

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Unfortunately there’s nothing you can do to immediately “fix” your credit report after you’ve made a late payment. No matter what the reason was for your late payment (even if it wasn’t entirely your fault like a check lost in the mail) it will remain on your credit report for some time and will impact your credit score quite dramatically for up to 2 years or longer. Read more »

Make no mistake, debt collectors will do and say anything necessary to collect a debt. They know the business and they know all the tricks necessary to make people pay. They are not your friends, and they are definitely not on your side. Before you make any deal with a debt collector it’s important to have that deal in writing. You need to make it perfectly clear to them that you absolutely will not pay them a dime until they have given you a deal in writing. Read more »

If you have active credit accounts that you’ve been paying regularly there are a few reasons why your credit score may not be going up. One reason is that your lender may not actually be reporting to any credit bureau. It isn’t required by law and actually costs money to submit information to the credit reporting bureaus. Some companies may report to just one bureau or none at all. You can find out if your lender is reporting or even manually submit reports to the credit bureaus yourself. Read more »

When you cosign for a loan it’s really exactly the same thing as applying for a loan yourself. While you may only be the cosigner and not actually see any of the money from the loan (or get to the use the vehicle in the case of an auto loan) you are still 100% obligated for payments made to the account. If the buyer decides not to make any payments then your credit report will be hurt every bit as much as theirs is. Read more »

One of the best ways to improve your credit score is to identify and dispute any negative entries on your credit report which may be inaccurate. People make mistakes and credit reporting bureaus are no different. They can easily add things to your credit report that’s meant for someone else’s. If you find inaccuracies you can dispute them by sending a letter directly to the credit bureau who is reporting the inaccuracy. If every bureau has the same inaccuracy you will have to dispute it with each of them. Read more »

Your credit score could be anywhere from 200 to 850 with 200 being the lowest and 850 being the best possible credit score (which of course very few people actually ever have). Any score between 650 and 800 could be considered a good credit score to have. Anything below 650 and you will probably have a hard time getting credit or at least getting the best possible financing rates. Read more »

If you have accounts in collection status the very best thing you can do is to contact the collections company and try to negotiate a lower payoff. Often times collection companies will accept much less than what is owed to help settle your outstanding balance with them. They are willing to work with you especially if you are interested in paying your account balances off in full.

If you decide to negotiate with collection agencies you should get any deal you make in writing before you pay off your balance. You should make them agree to remove the entry from your credit report completely after payment is made. Once you make your payment they really have no obligation to remove anything from your credit report unless you get your agreement in writing first. Read more »

Part of your credit score is determined by how much debt you have compared to how much credit you have available. If you are only paying your minimum monthly payments on your credit card then I would have to assume that you’re carrying a balance every month. Any time you carry a balance over about 20% of your available credit you can start to hurt your FICO credit score. If you are close to your maximum credit limit on all of your credit cards it can hurt your credit score quite significantly. Read more »

Each individual debt on your credit report will appear as discharged after you file bankruptcy. They will take about seven a half years to fall off of your credit report completely. The biggest impact a bankruptcy will have on your credit history is within the first two years of filing. The FCRA (Fair Credit Reporting Act) says that all negative entries must be removed within seven and a half years and nothing can reset this time limit or make it shorter. Read more »