My Reactions to Seeing My Credit Report

Yesterday I got my three free credit reports from annualcreditreport.com. At my other blog, I wrote about my experiences downloading the reports. I spent last night poring through them, reliving old memories of credit cards I’ve used and abused over the years.

For the most part, the reports looked accurate. However, there were some major jaw-dropping errors. For example, my Equifax report lists my current employer as a part-time job I had as an undergraduate 17 years ago. My Experian report includes my last home phone number in California (now 3 years out of date). It makes me wonder—does anyone use this “ancillary” information? It appeared that the credit agencies aren’t really trying to keep this information accurate. (It also explains why I submitted the “wrong” answers to some of their authentication questions online).

Because of these major errors and my question of how they affect a user of the credit report, I was also really interested in learning my FICO score (but I’m not willing to pay for it). I think we should be able to get our FICO score free along with the free credit reports. Getting one without the other felt a little incomplete.