Credit Basics

How credit report mistakes are made

When a credit report contains errors, it is often because the report is incomplete, or contains information about someone else. This typically happens because:

  • The person applied for credit under different names (Robert Jones, Bob Jones, etc.).
  • Someone made a clerical error in reading or entering name or address information from a hand-written application.
  • The person gave an inaccurate Social Security number, or the number was misread by the lender.
  • Loan or credit card payments were inadvertently applied to the wrong account.

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