Access your free credit report and beat the banks at their own game!
Even though it appears on the surface that banks and lenders want you to have the very best credit report score in order to qualify for their loans, that is not always the case. Believe it or not, they need people with bad credit scores in order to make the bulk of their money. The bank or lender makes their money from interest rates, which means the higher the interest rates – the more money they get in their coffers.
Not only does the bank or lender want you to have a slightly blemished credit report for their loan approval, but they want you to be a couple of days late on some of your repayments as well. This is because many lenders have their loans set up to make more money from their customers who fail to make their repayments on time. They certainly do not want you to be months late, but they’ll gladly welcome the inevitable late payment here and there. Banks also have a way to make sure you are given the worst interest rate possible. They want to see that you have an error or a small blemish on your credit report that you did not know about.
The first thing you want to do is to realize that your goal should not only be to get the loan approved, but to get a loan with the best interest rate and terms possible. To do this you will need to make sure that you are looking up your credit report. But you do not just want to look over one of them – you will need to pull all three of the major reports (ie. Experian, Equifax and TransUnion) in order to make sure that you have all of your bases covered.
You will also need to make sure that you are taking a very close look at all of your three reports. What may be reported on one report may not be reported on another. Since you do not know just exactly which credit report agency the lender or banks will use when reviewing your application for a loan, it is important to make sure that you check all three are in order. Your loan approval is depending on you so make sure that you are looking for any errors and anomalies that you can possibly find.
However, you might be asking – wouldn't I already know if there were any errors on my credit report? That is what a lot of people tend to think but most of the time, the errors go completely unnoticed until a credit report is pulled and reviewed. There are several different types of errors that you want to look out for on your credit report. However, before you can even work on getting that loan approved, you have to pull the reports. Most people have been told that there is a cost or that they have to sign up for some free trial service to get the credit report, but this is simply not true!
Your credit report is available free of charge, once a year. This isn’t just for one but for all three of your credit reports – ie. Experian, Equifax and TransUnion! Since you do not know which one the banks will look at, you will want to pull all three. All you have to do is go directly to the website of the credit report company and request your free credit report. You can view it online instantly or have a copy mailed to you. It is important to make sure that you are getting the free reports and not the others because there is no reason to spend money when you are already obviously looking for some type of loan. Paying for this would be a clear waste of money.
Here’s a great video that outlines how to manage your credit report with the various credit reporting agencies
If you have to have the credit report mailed to you, expect it to take a couple of weeks. For those who are pressed for time, viewing your report online is the best option. On the credit report sites, you will create a username and a password, which can be used to log back in to review your report. Since the credit report agencies only allow you online access to your report for a certain period of time, it might be beneficial to make a copy of your report and save it to your computer. This way, you have as much time as you need to correct any and all errors on your report.
If you find errors, make sure that you are reporting them to the credit agencies right away so that they can begin to investigate and rectify. Generally, the investigation and updating of your credit report will take a few weeks. In extreme cases such as fraud, you could be looking at a couple of months. So, if you are looking for a loan approval sometime in the near future, make sure that you are taking action now and beat the banks at their own game!