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Sure, you know that you are authorized to check your credit report whenever you want, once a year from each of the credit bureaus for free. However, you may not be sure of who else can check your credit report. Is it possible that anyone can check your credit, even without your permission?

Getting your credit report checked by companies you are doing business with is not unusual. In fact, when you are applying for a loan to buy a car, a house, or anything else, they check your credit. When you apply for a credit card, they check your credit score.

But who, out of all these people that check your credit, is authorized to do without your permission, and who is not? Most everybody that has a legitimate business need to check your credit can do so without obtaining written, or even verbal consent. However, most of these companies will ask for your permission first, though it is not required.

Employers

One person who is required to get your consent is your employer. This applies for potential employers also. If you are applying for a job, or have a job, they need your permission, though it does not always have to be written, to pull your credit. If you give them permission once, they generally do not have to ask for it again if they want to check your credit in the future.

Tip:

Many people do not keep track of their credit report as well as they should. When you are applying for a job or for credit, it is ideal that know exactly what the lender or potential employer is looking at when they check your report. It is crucial to know what is on your credit report because there could be mistakes, in which case you should immediately send a dispute letter conserning such to the credit bureaus so that you can get it eliminated.

Also, if you never checked your credit report, you could not repair the damage done by identity theft. Sure, your credit card company may let you know that you have maxed out on your credit card, you may convince them that it wasn’t you, and you may close that account to prevent further misunderstanding. However, it will still show on your credit report that you went over your credit limit, unless you check your report and dispute that mistake.

Some government agencies have limits on what they can see of your credit history. Things like your name, address, former address, and current and former employers are the only things that some companies are allowed to see. The rights you have concerning what companies can see of your credit history are protected under the FCRA, or the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

You have certain right when it comes to your credit privacy. It is sometimes difficult to know whether those rights are being protected or not. Knowing who needs permission to pull your credit and who does not will help you to keep your credit report safe from potential fraud.

Not being able to pay your credit card bills is a horrible feeling. There’s a sense of urgency, yet hopelessness when you have used up all your money paying bills, only to find out that there are still more to be paid. So it’s obvious that you need to know which bills are more important, and therefore more in need of being paid. Still, what kind of consequences come from getting behind on your credit card bills?

People sometimes worry about the safety of their home when they find that they cannot scrounge up the money to pay their credit card bills. They feel that if they get behind, they may be punished by having their not-quite-paid-for home foreclosed. However, there are certain, rather uncommon circumstances that would create that sort of situation.

Most of the credit cards that people get are unsecured credit cards. This means that they did not have to put up anything as collateral to insure that the credit card company would get what they were owed if people could not pay their bills. These types of credit cards are just easier, and less binding than a secured credit card.

However, there are some credit cards that must be secured by collateral of some sort. This allows the credit card company to take that collateral from the card holder if they neglect to make their payments. The only way you could have your home foreclosed upon is if you are in a situation somewhat like this, and have your home connected to your credit card in a way that makes it collateral.

This is also known as a home equity line of credit, which is often backed up by a second mortgage. In this case, if you fail to make your credit card payments, they have authority to foreclose on your home. If you cannot pay for it, you lose it.

Some people refinance their homes so that they can get out of credit card debt. Still, this refinancing is done through a mortgage lender. Therefore, foreclosure is not in the power of the credit card company you are borrowing from, but the mortgage company.

Refinancing your home to pay off your credit card debt may not be the best idea anyway. Putting your home on the line is never a good solution, especially if your credit cards are unsecured, and you will lose nothing except your easy ability to get credit in the future if you fail to make your payments and go bankrupt. If you refinance your home on behalf of your credit cards, you may end up paying them off, but you raise your potential of losing your home.

If the only reason you are refinancing your home to pay off your credit cards is because of the interest rates, do a balance transfer. Find a credit card that has the low interest rate you are looking for, and transfer your balance from the old card to the new. This will be much easier, and it will not put your home at risk, either.

If you don’t know much about credit card companies and the ways that they make money they can seem that you can get a better deal by putting it on credit. Our society has become dependent on credit with their buy now pay later attitude. Because of certain laws that have been passed and regulators that look away credit card companies have been able to make a sweet deal for themselves. If you want to really find out what the credit card companies can do to make money just read the fine print on your credit card statement and agreement. Ed Mierzwinski who is the consumer program director for a research group in Washington D.C. “It’s a license to steal.”

There are many ways that a credit card company can get your money. One way is to offer one card but give you another. When you receive a statement in the mail they will advertise the best card at the best rates, but your agreement says that if you don’t get approved for the premium card the company can send you another card with a much higher APR without your consent. So just because you wanted that low rate doesn’t mean that the card in your mail box has that low rate. Also they can use what is called universal default penalties.

This is where the credit card company checks your credit report for any late payments and even if the late payment is not with them they will raise your rate. Credit cards can also charge you money if you don’t use them. Some people think that it is safe if they keep their card in their wallet or a safe for a “rainy day” and they are unaware that the credit card companies are charging them $20 for every three months that they have not swiped their card. One of the better know fees is the over limit and late fees.

These can be anywhere from $20 to $40 for the late fees. An over limit fee is when you exceed a credit limit even a penny and they will charge you from $20 to $40. One of the more evil practices is that a $40 late fee can then give you another $40 over limit fee.

If the credit card companies have a mandatory arbitration clause that means that you don’t have a right to take them to court, but have to use arbitration. There are also balance transfer fees. Where they offer a great introductory rate of even 0% APR but require a 3 to 10 percent transfer balance fee, which means if you transfer $5000 at a 10% transfer fee you would be paying them additional $500.

Some credit card companies will not even tell you up front what your annual interest rate is going to be. For instance some credit card companies will just give you a range and then chose for them selves what you will have to pay. This also can be bad for those with good credit history, because they could give you a larger APR to make up for those that have not made any payments.

You have taken the first steps, you’ve looked through your credit report, and you have concluded that there is a mistake on there that should not even exist. But what do you do from here on? How do you get that annoying mishap out of your credit report?

It is a rather long process, but it can be done. It has been done by many people, and you can do it alone or you can have the aid of credit repair services.

However, doing it yourself only costs you the effort, while doing it with a credit repair service will cost money, though many people believe that repair service employees know what they are doing much better than themselves. Either way, you want to get that nasty little detail off your credit report, and you want to get it off soon.

Write the Letter

The first thing you should do is write a dispute letter to the credit reporting agencies, or the credit bureaus, pointing out the problem on your credit report, asking them to eliminate this mistake, and telling them why. This first step will allow you to get your problem out on the table so that they can acknowledge that there is something wrong. There are several guidelines you can follow to ensure that your letter states clearly what the problem is, and how you would like it fixed, which guidelines you can find online or through the credit repair services that you are using.

In your letter you should include every one of the negative listings on your credit report that you feel should be taken off. This is so that you can get all of the possible errors investigated in a single act, rather than dragging the process out by disputing them one by one.

You must show all of these negative listings clearly, stating what lender was involved in this mistake, like perhaps a certain credit card company, and the amount of money which was involved, like the amount written on the bill that you paid late. These will help to specify each problem, allowing the investigation to go more quickly since you provide the information, rather than having the credit reporting agency try to find it.

What you should also include in your letter is your personal information. You need to write things like your name, social security number, driver’s license information, mailing address, etc. You also need to include, under each complaint against your negative listings, tell what you are disputing. For example, most complaints against negative reports are complaints against the accuracy of the listing, so instead of letting them guess, you need to state that in your dispute letter.

Wait

Next, wait and give a little time for the investigation to take place. It’s not a matter of whether or not they will do it. They are required by law to investigate your disputes. If it takes longer than usual, you may want to write another letter, but don’t nag them, because yours is only one of hundreds of complaints every day, so this may take time.