Don’t Use Credit Apps Instead of Checking Your Credit Report
If you are registered with a credit monitoring application, you are probably familiar with its most common warning: “No major change in your credit balance.”
You can also assume – like me – that this means you no longer need to check your credit report. After all, your loan application tells you that there is nothing to worry about.
I used to have a calendar alert reminding me to look at a new credit report every four months. (Remember, you are eligible for one free credit report from Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion per year, so the standard advice is to distribute them.) Then I signed up for the free credit monitoring that came with my bank and stopped checking my credit reports. errors and potential identity theft.
Well. As many of you noticed when I wrote yesterday’s post on how to get the perfect credit rating , my Capital One CreditWise app stated that I have used credit responsibly for the past 26 years. I used to remember that my early growing up happened twenty years ago, so that number didn’t trigger any red flags … until Lifehacker commenters counted up and asked why my app was telling me that I took out my first credit card when I was eleven years old.
So I pulled out my credit reports, which I haven’t done since 2017.
My Experian and Equifax reports were fine. My TransUnion report, on the other hand, lists two names associated with the report: “Nicole Dicker” and “Nicole Dicker”. It also claimed that I took out the AT&T Savings Platinum universal credit card in 1994, making successful payments on time until I closed the card in 2015 (thank goodness Nicole Dicker was a responsible consumer of credit).
I filed a dispute with TransUnion online and by the end of the day, the wrong information was extracted from my report.
Yes, that means my credit rating could drop once the FICO realizes that my credit history is only 14 years old, not 26 (I opened my first credit card when I was in graduate school). But it’s important to do the right thing. even if it hurts your credit score.
It’s also important to check your credit reports regularly, even if you have a credit monitoring app that is supposed to check your reports for you – so go ahead and put those “pull your credit report” reminders back on your calendar.