Get the benefit of good credit with a sound credit report. This is a vital document portraying a person’s financial management. Its accuracy is highly desirable to have an excellent image in the eyes of creditors and lenders. After acquiring your free credit reports from the three official agencies, one should sit down to verify the information in them.

When you grab your free credit report, keep an eye out for following areas, as these are vitals parts of the report.

Reviewing personal information

This is the most basic and essential thing to verify. Check your name and if it is spelled correctly, as your report may contain a misspelling or an incorrect maiden name. Next, the big thing to monitor is your address, social security number, date of birth and phone number. There are big opportunities for discrepancies due to similar names or security numbers, so carefully scrutinize them to get the errors corrected. Flaws or outdated details can also cripple employment information.

Detecting account information

Investigate your credit file to make sure that you are aware of the listed creditors. Due to identity theft crimes, there is the chance that accounts you did not know about were opened by hackers. There can also be errors from mechanical or clerical errors. There can be duplicity in accounts, ex spouse accounts or errors in unpaid taxes, liens, judgments, etc.

Closely monitoring account history

Your payment history contains details and it has to be reviewed closely to boost the score. You should check whether paid items are displayed as unpaid or actually on time paid payments are reporting as late payments. Your history can be spotty due to wrongly reported bankruptcies or collections and can ruin a credit report.

Investigate credit balances and credit limits

Credit checks help review inaccuracies in the card balance on each credit card. An individual should establish the correct reporting of limits.

Monitor unauthorized inquiries

Your credit is pulled but you are not aware of it; in this case, there are big chances for identity theft, as it can be a hacker’s trap to steal your personal information. A credit check can save you from being victim of identity theft.

Check about good accounts on your credit reports

Due to any number of reasons, you may observe absenteeism of good accounts, which is a reason to boost your credit scores. To get it corrected, you can ask the creditor to report the change to the bureaus.

Looking for your free annual credit report? Get your credit check and a free credit score with credit monitoring service and credit alerts to keep a check on your credit report and score.