Personal Profile

This section will display some of your basic personal information.  Lenders looking at this section will be able to see your full legal name, your date of birth, current and previous employers, and even your history of addresses which you’ve resided at.

Credit Summary

This section will give you an overview of your past and current credit status.  You’ll see a list of open and closed accounts that you’ve had as well as important information concerning those accounts such as balances and delinquencies.  You’ll also be able to see who’s been looking into your credit file.  These may be people that have requested your credit report because you’ve applied for a loan or for a new credit card.  The number of inquiries that are recorded will be saved only for the most recent six month period.

There are four types of accounts that are listed.  Real Estate Accounts include loans that you’ve made for homes, such as mortgages.  They may be loans that you’ve made for other properties as well.  Installment Accounts include those credit accounts with which you have a set payment schedule for.  Revolving Accounts include your balances on your credit cards, and other similar accounts that let you buy things on credit without going through the process of applying for an additional loan.  Collection Accounts are accounts that might have problems with them.  Payments for these accounts may be overdue and could require a third party, such as a collection agency, to help collect on.

Public Records

This section includes information that concerns bankruptcy records, court documents, child support records, and other monetary judgments.  These public records basically show what other financial payment obligations you might have and how you manage them.

Credit Inquiries

This section displays who’s been inquiring about your credit.  It’ll list what lender or creditor has requested your credit report, for whatever reason.  It is important to know that there are two types of inquiries:  hard inquiries and soft inquiries.

A hard inquiry can be made by a financial institution, a creditor, or a lender, through which certain financial information about your credit is required.  This may be the case when you apply for any type of loans, or for a credit card.  A hard inquiry is also a factor used when determining your credit score because too many of these inquiries may signify to whoever is looking, that you’re looking for more credit because of financial difficulties.

A soft credit inquiry occurs when either you retrieve your own credit report or when an employer requests your credit report.  These soft inquiries are not seen by lenders and creditors and do not affect your overall credit score.  They’re just there for you to see.

There are several important suggestions regarding credit inquiries.  First, try to limit the amount of hard inquiries made.  This means that you don’t want to be borrowing money too often from financial institutions.  It’ll show up on your credit report and will negatively affect your score.  Don’t sign up for too many credit cards either.  Look at who’s looking into your credit.  Follow up on any unfamiliar sources.  Make sure only those that should be looking at your credit can look at them.  Your inquiries remain on your credit report for two years.

Account History

This section contains more detailed information on the credit accounts that you’ve had.  For example, each account listed will show the balances, terms, limits, and any positive or negative comments.  You’ll want to double check to see if all the information is correct.  Look for accounts that you don’t recognize.  This could be credit fraud.

Included with each account is a 24-month payment history.  Displayed will be information regarding whether or not you’ve been good with making payments.  If not, it’ll be noted how delinquent you might have been.  This section packs quite a bit of information so be sure to go through all the accounts thoroughly and make sure that everything is correct and accurate.

PLUS Score

Your plus score is a value assigned to you to represent how much of a credit risk you are.  This isn’t a FICO score.  It’s an Experian Credit Score.  The two are similar but not exactly the same.  The scores range from 330 to 830.  The higher the credit score is, the better you stand in the eyes of creditors and lenders.  They’ll view your credit worthiness as something they can accept.

Your credit score is determined by a number of factors.  There are three main credit bureaus in the US and each bureau has a slightly different way of calculating it.  So you’ll most likely get three different credit scores from each credit bureau.  Experian, Equifax, and Transunion are the three main credit bureaus. 

Breaking the basic components of a credit score include the following.  Your payment history, the number of credit accounts, types of credit accounts, credit usage, length of credit history, credit applications, and bankruptcies.  These are just some of the primarily variables that go into determining your credit score.  There are many other credit factors.