The phenomenon of credit reports and why they’re around always comes to the front of a person’s attention whenever he or she needs to apply for credit for just about anything these days. What is a fact is that a credit report has much more of an impact on almost every aspect of a person’s life than in the past, even when much of their life has nothing to do with actual credit.
As an example, it’s important to understand that having what the credit industry refers to as poor credit can cause much more to be paid for something that’s financed — in terms of interest rates — than if good credit existed when upon initial application. Additionally, understand that organizations like auto insurance companies are pulling credit to determine policy cost.
Those kinds of companies are doing so because they believe that a person’s credit history can be a good indication of the level of risk they might bring to the game in terms of getting into accidents or receiving traffic tickets and the like. Many experts vehemently dispute this outlook and the states are beginning to come to the conclusion that the practice needs to be outlawed.
What is also good to know is that more and more prospective employers are looking at a prospective employee’s past credit history before coming to a decision about hiring him or her. Keep in mind that a prospective employer must obtain, in writing, permission from the prospective employee to pull credit from one of the three major bureaus (TransUnion, Experian, Equifax) in order to assess it.
What all this means is that credit and the need to have it and also the need to assess just who is a good credit risk and who isn’t is a a fact of life in our society these days. Mailboxes can be stuffed full of credit offers from organizations that have accessed what the credit bureaus call a quick look report and sent out an offer for “possible” credit because of that quick look, for example.
These reports exist as a way of gauging a person’s risk, for the most part. They can provide a 7 to 10 year (or even longer in cases where a bankruptcy has existed in the past) glimpse of a person’s consumer life. Poor credit can mean a much higher interest rate on a mortgage or an automobile loan. In other words, poor credit cost people quite a bit of money over the long run.
This is why it’s very important for a consumer to stay on top of his or her credit history. By law, each of the three credit reporting bureaus must — when asked to do so by a consumer — provide one free copy per year of the credit file they have on a consumer. There won’t be a credit score with it (that can be purchased for additional cost) but it’s a very useful tool to gauge one’s credit history.
Understanding and appreciating credit reports and why they exist becomes necessary anytime one is going to apply for credit and they want to make sure they’ll be successful in the application for it. Bad credit thus calls for credit repair.
