The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) is a federal law that regulates the collection, dissemination, and use of consumer credit information. It provides consumers with rights, such as the ability to dispute errors on their credit reports. Unfortunately, too many people have inaccurate adverse information on their credit report. You can challenge errors. Here, our credit reporting error attorney highlights six common types of errors that you should look for in your credit report.
- Someone Else’s Account (Identity Theft or Mixed File)
Your credit report may show accounts that belong to someone else. It could be due to identity theft or a mixed file, such as a credit report from someone with a similar name. These errors can damage your credit score and, in some cases, make you responsible for debts that are not yours. You should absolutely dispute your credit report if someone else’s account ends up in your file.
- Inaccurate Late/Missed Payment
A credit report may wrongly show a late or missed payment on an account you paid on time. These errors can dramatically lower your credit score. It could even adversely affect your ability to get approved for credit. Here is a key point to know: Lenders rely heavily on payment history—and that means that even one false late payment can be costly.
- Incorrect Balance Information
Your credit report might list the wrong balance on one or more of your accounts. It could make it seem like you owe more than you actually do. That would harm your credit utilization ratio, which plays a big role in your credit score. A higher reported balance may make lenders see you as a higher risk.
- Account Status Wrong
A credit account may be incorrectly marked as open when it was closed, or vice versa. Other status errors include showing an account as delinquent, charged off, or in collections when it is actually in good standing. You should make sure that the status of all of the accounts that are listed on your credit report is accurate.
- Errors Related to Public Records
Public records matter. You should make sure that you take a look at all the records listed on your report for accuracy. Public records like bankruptcies, liens, or judgments may be reported incorrectly on your credit file. In some cases, they may belong to someone else or may have been dismissed but still appear as active.
- Outdated Adverse Information (Should Already Be Removed)
Negative information—such as late payments or outstanding debt collections—should automatically be removed after a certain number of years. If outdated data remains on your credit report, it can unfairly lower your credit score. Credit reporting agencies have a responsibility to make sure that information is removed when it should be.
Contact Our Credit Reporting Error Lawyer Today
At The Kim Law Firm, LLC, we are committed to protecting the rights and interests of consumers. Credit reporting agencies can cause you significant financial harm—they should be corrected. If you have any questions about your options for fixing a credit report error, please do not hesitate to contact us today. Our firm holds creditor reporting agencies and debt collectors accountable.
Errors on your credit report?
The Kim Law Firm helps consumers with credit report errors under the FCRA and FDCPA. Get a free case review or call 855-996-6342 — you pay nothing unless we win.
The same errors recur at the same companies
Credit report errors are not evenly distributed. Mixed files cluster where two consumers share a name and a partial identifier, duplicate tradelines cluster where accounts are transferred or resold, and status errors cluster at issuers with large portfolios and heavy monthly reporting volume. Reading your report with the specific company in mind is more productive than reading it generally, because the type of mistake you are looking for depends on who is furnishing the entry.
- Experian — where a mixed file most often has to be untangled first.
- Equifax — a nationwide bureau whose matching logic produces its own errors.
- TransUnion — the third bureau, which frequently reports a different picture.
- Innovis — a fourth bureau most consumers never check.
- Chase — a large issuer where status and balance errors surface at scale.
- Wells Fargo — reports across cards, auto and mortgage product lines.
Order all three reports rather than one, since an error present at a single bureau tells you the problem is in that bureau’s file assembly rather than in what the furnisher sent. Then read each entry for four fields specifically: the account status, the balance, the date of first delinquency, and the payment history grid. Those four are where nearly every actionable inaccuracy lives, and a dispute that identifies the wrong field by name is far more likely to produce a real reinvestigation than a general request to verify the account.