How Common Are Credit Report Errors?As much as we may dislike the idea, credit report errors are a fact of life. In 2003, the Federal Reserve looked at the records of 250,000 individuals in the US. Frighteningly, they came to the conclusion that 70 percent of them contained mistakes. Some of those mistakes might be very minor and accidental, others might be career threatening - and almost certainly some were the result of identity theft. In a study in 2004, the Public Interest Research Group, an American organisation for consumer advocacy reviewed 200 reports from a 30 state sample. This is admittedly a very small sample and can in no way represent the files of 300 million Americans. However, they found that almost 80 percent showed mistakes. They highlighted other areas for concern. For example, personal information was misspelled, belonged to a stranger or was outdated a shocking 54 percent of the time. Phew! Isn't it lucky that the modern world does not rely on these details... These credit report errors show that it could be quite easy for an identity thief to masquerade or open other accounts since the illegal actions can be explained away quite easily as 'just an error'. It is hard to justify this as being good enough for any of us. It would also be easy for a loan application to be turned down because the information provided did not pass their requirements. Also consider that many employers, especially in finance or cash handling occupations will do a background check on new and current employees. Fail their test and it could be a future or current career ruined. This would be devastating if the reason was actually factual mistakes contained on a credit bureau file. Despite the problems just discussed, most consumers are not aware that it is not the responsibility of the credit bureau to look for and correct credit report errors. It is actually the responsibility of the individual to point out any problems or inaccuracies and prove or suggest alterations. Since most people are not aware of this, the errors will almost certainly remain. If this does not convince you that you need to look at and try to understand your credit file on a regular basis, it is hard to imagine what will. For other related pages, please go to:
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