Credit Bureaus/Reports/Scores

What is That on Our Credit Report?

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As I discussed over the past week or so, we are purchasing a new home and recently went through the pre-approval process and are now in the actual loan application period (in other words, we filed the application and now everything is up to the bank). We are working towards closing at the end of this month.

Well during the pre-approval, my banker mentioned how my wife’s credit file, after pulling reports from all three of the credit bureaus, Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion, showed she had a duplicate entry for a student loan each of us knew nothing about.


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The bank had alerted us that it just looked like a duplicate entry and there really should not be anything to worry about because it was coming up as delinquent. However, we were completely puzzled from the standpoint we have never had this loan show up on a credit report, and my wife did not know anything about it. Let alone, my wife has been out of school for at least 3 years and we have never received a bill.

So my wife began her investigation skills to get to the bottom of the mystery loan. First she called her school to see if they could tell her anything. After several days of calls, they were finally able to tell her that it was only one loan for $4,000; however, the duplicate entry on the tri-credit report that the bank pulled for the loan was showing it twice. So my banker gladly provided the contact information for the company they used to retrieve all of the reports.

First, before I forget, my wife tells me the company, CBCInnovis, was absolutely terrific to deal with, and in my wife’s opinion had the best customer service of anywhere she has ever dealt business. Well after talking with the agent, she was able to determine that two different agencies were reporting the same loan. The problem was they each labeled it slightly different, causing the duplicate entry. She was quickly able to correct the error so that in the future, it only shows on my wife’s credit file once.

The kicker of the whole thing though is that now we need to start paying this loan. Apparently the loan was in deferment all of these years because of an error on the part of the school billing system. They thought she was still in school. Since I did not even know my wife when she took out the loan, I knew nothing about it. We pay our student loans every month, and I always assumed it covered everything.

So look at us…we try and be honest so that we maintain such great credit files, and end up finding another $4,000 of unknown debt. SUCKS! Now I just have to wait and see what the school does to get us to start paying. I am all for paying debts, but it just stinks that as soon as we take on a larger financial responsibility, we find a mystery loan that gets factored back into the budget. If we had never notified the school, we might never have had to start paying on the loan because it would have continued to keep getting deferred.

Credit Scores from Mortgage Pre-Approval

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As everyone now knows, we have purchased a new home and are currently in the process of getting the inspection scheduled and completed, as well as getting all of the financing lined up. My banker pulled our credit reports last week during the pre-approval process and said our scores were really good, but at the time there was so much other stuff going on, I did not inquire what the scores from the three bureaus were at that moment.

We definitely knew approximately what our scores were from the bureaus, as I discussed in my previous post How Do I Find My Credit Score? In that post, I discussed being able to monitor your Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion credit reports and scores by using annualcreditreport.com.


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Well I was surprised to receive letters for both my wife and I this week from our bank highlighting our credit scores from all three bureaus as well as detailing some of the pros and minuses on each of our files. I am happy to report that our scores more than blew me away, and I was so proud of my wife and I for maintaining such great credit scores.

Wife
786 Equifax
753 TransUnion
768 Experian

Me
813 Equifax
793 TransUnion
820 Experian

There are two things that surprised me. First, I was really proud of my wife’s scores. She knew very little about credit scores and maintaining a healthy credit line before meeting me, and we have worked really hard to boost her scores for what is our most important purchase ever.

Second, I am still rather surprised by my TransUnion score. I was curious, so I decided to log into my CreditKarma account, as I discussed in my post United Airlines Card Downgrade Impact to Credit Scores, to compare my scores. I maintained a 774 score for a really long time according to CreditKarma. It dipped down to 772 tonight, undoubtedly because of my hard pull for the pre-approval. Obviously when looking at my actual TransUnion score, 793, there is something that is not quite aligned.

So in other words, take the scores you receive from some of these third parties with a grain of salt, because not all of them align exactly. I count on it more to at least monitor any activity on our files.

Regardless, we are really happy and should be able to sail through the approval process with our high scores.

How Do I Find My Credit Score?

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This week I learned of two new websites offering free credit reports or scores without making you sign up for a free trial, so I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to review everyone’s available options when it comes time to learn your credit rating. The three credit bureaus are Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion.


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As required by law, if you want to obtain a free copy of your credit report, you need to go to the official sponsored site, annualcreditreport.com. Users need to make sure they go to this official site, and not other sites that try to get you to sign up for credit monitoring or other programs just to see your reports and scores.

You are allowed to pull your report from each credit bureau once per year (not calendar year, actual year from your last free pull). Keep in mind you will only receive a free report and not your scores. If you wish to obtain scores, you can purchase them from the bureaus.

I personally recommend spacing out your free credit reports so you can monitor them all year. I typically try to space ours out every four months to make sure I keep tabs on our files all year long.

Keep in mind there are also other circumstances where you can get a free copy of your report such as if you were denied credit or other various issues.

Now lets say you have already exhausted your credit reports for the year, and do not want to pay each of the bureaus for the pleasure to see them again. There are a couple of options available from various third parties. CreditKarma, CreditSesame, and Quizzle.

I have been a member of CreditKarma for at least a year, and can speak of their site from first hand experience. After registering for the site, and verifying your identity, you will have access to your score all year long for FREE with nothing to sign up for or trial periods. The CreditKarma site utilizes the TransUnion system for calculating your score. You are allowed to update your score once per day if you wish, which can be a nice way to monitor how a change to your file will impact your score.

In exchange for your credit scores, CreditKarma, and the other two sites, use your credit profile to offer you products to help and reduce any debt you may have on file. They do all of this while still not performing a hard pull on your credit file; therefore, there should not be an impact to your credit scores by using these sites.

An example of the types of offers you may see include evaluating your mortgage, and searching for other products you may want to consider to lower your monthly payment. The sites only get paid IF you close on a loan or signup for an offer shown on their site. Meanwhile, they give you free access to your score, as well as offer you various explanations, graphs, and analysis for improving your credit score.

The two new sites I learned about this week were CreditSesame and Quizzle. CreditSesame and Quizzle both utilize your Experian credit file.

The CreditSesame site looks to be a little different than CreditKarma, in that they update your score once per month. Still for the average consumer, that should be more than adequate. CreditSesame also does not provide an actual credit report, only your score.

The Quizzle site (which is part of the Quicken’s Loan company) appears to be different than both the aforementioned sites. Quizzle will allow you two copies of your credit report each year (every six months) for free. Any additional requests will incur a $9 fee, which still is cheaper than purchasing them directly from the credit bureaus. The site will also give you access to your Quizzle score (again every six months), which is similar to the Experian calculation.

So while all three sites operate on different business models, they are quite similar at the same time. I have not had a chance yet to open up a CreditSesame or Quizzle account yet, but when I get credit curious in the future, I will likely utilize these great, free services.