Ignorance is bliss...or so the saying goes. However, when it comes to your credit reports and scores being ignorant can be a truly horrible strategy which can have some seriously negative consequences as well. People generally ignore their credit for one of two reasons. First, many consumers with good credit assume that everything on their credit reports is fine and do not even bother to check their reports until their next loan application. The second most common reason why consumers ignore their credit is due to the fact that it is so bad that they feel overwhelmed and powerless to change their credit situation. Regardless of the reason, ignoring your credit is a really bad idea.
Why Consumers with Good Credit Need Still Need to Pay Attention
If you always pay your bills on time and maintain very low or even $0 balances on your credit cards then odds are high that your credit scores are probably in pretty good shape. The truth is that you have the right to expect your credit reports to contain accurate information. However, the reality of how the credit scoring system works is that mistakes on credit reports happen. In fact the Federal Trade Commission released a study in 2013 which proposes that there were around 40 million mistakes on the credit reports of US consumers. Although the Fair Credit Reporting Act does give you the right to expect accurate credit reports, errors still occur every single day. What you may not realize is that the responsibility to make sure you credit reports remain error free lands squarely on your own 2 shoulders.
Credit reporting errors can range from insignificant with little to no credit score impact to all the way on the opposite side of the spectrum where the wrong credit reporting error can wreak utter havoc upon your credit scores. Thankfully, there are several options which make it extremely easy for you to keep a close eye on your credit reports in order to ensure that they remain accurate.
Option 1: In 2003, thanks to the FACTA amendment to the Fair Credit Reporting Act, consumers were given the right to access all three of their credit reports completely free of charge once every 12 months. To access these free credit reports you simply need to visit AnnualCreditReport.com. (Not-so-fun-fact: an average of only 4% of these available free reports are actually claimed by consumers annually.)
Option 2: If you are wise enough to understand the importance of keeping a close eye on your credit reports then you will also realize that checking your credit reports once a year is not going to be often enough. The good news is that there are many free options available to access and review your credit reports throughout the year - though this option can be a bit time consuming due to the fact that truly free reports can generally only be accessed one credit bureau at a time.
Option 3: Finally, there are also several affordable fee based credit monitoring services which will allow you to check an monitor all 3 of your credit reports and scores simultaneously and easily.
Why Consumers with Bad Credit Still Need to Pay Attention
There is no question that credit problems can feel overwhelming and insurmountable. When faced with credit problems the desire to stick your head in the sand and ignore them can be very tempting. Unfortunately, ignoring credit problems does not make them go away but only keeps you stuck in the same bad situation for longer than necessary.
Whether you choose to work on resolving credit issues yourself or to seek professional assistance with your credit problems you should make the decision to do something. No matter how bad your credit reports are currently - even if you are one day out of a freshly discharged bankruptcy - there are always steps which you can take to begin moving your credit back in the right direction.
CLICK HERE to schedule a no-obligation credit analysis with a HOPE4USA credit expert to learn how to improve your credit reports and what HOPE4USA can do to help.
CLICK HERE to download our free credit repair toolkit - no strings attached.
About the author: Ron Lambright has been a credit expert for over 14 years and is the Executive Director of HOPE4USA - a company he helped to found after struggling to overcome personal credit issues on his own twice before. He is a regular guest on radio talk shows and is featured weekly as the premier credit expert at training seminars in the Charlotte, NC region and up and down the East Coast. Ron is an expert on teaching consumers how to achieve "loan ready" credit reports, improving credit scores, and an expert in the fields of business financing and business credit as well. You can connect with Ron on Facebook page by clicking here.
