When you transact with banks and other financial institutions, they prepare a dossier on your bill payments, litigations and bankruptcy. This file shows the credibleness of your repayments for a loan or debt. There are few companies called Consumer Reporting Agencies that trace information and keep a track on your financial activities. The prominent of such agencies are Equifax , Experian and TransUnion .

According to the US Congress act on Fair Credit Reporting, CRAs have to provide correct and complete information to businesses to use in evaluating the applications for insurance, credit or employment. Credit reports are only provided to those with a legitimate business need. The unfavorable information provided by CRAs on issues such as bankruptcy or lawsuits against you would cover the past 5 to 10 years.

Want to know about your Credit Report?

Normally, CRAs provide information they have kept in the credit report on a request. They also disclose the source of the information, and it is your right to know the names of those, who requested your information in the recent past. If your credit application is denied on the information provided by a CRA, you can request a free credit report within 30 days after the denial.

Repair Credit Report Errors & Improve your Credit History

When you find inaccuracies in the credit report prepared by agencies, you inform them directly to rectify the errors. They will look into the issues you have mentioned, and on your request, send the corrected report to all those, who received your report in the past 6 months. There are no shortcuts to improve your credit history easily other than making regular payments. Nowadays, few companies offer to fix your report by charging some amount, but actually, they figure out the errors in your credit report and get them corrected.