Experian Credit Report

Experian is the company that was created after TRW left the credit reports business in 1996. Experian collects information about you and your credit history from public records, your creditors and other reliable sources. They make your credit history available to your current and prospective creditors and employers as allowed by law, which can expedite your ability to obtain credit and can make offers of credit available to you.

Many credit grantors rely on Experian data exclusively, or they may use Experian credit reports in combination with reports from Equifax and Trans Union, the other two major credit information repositories. Many companies, when deciding whether or not to grant credit to you, use the FICO score - which is a score based on your Experian credit report.

To seee a sample Experian Credit Report, click here.

Experian Credit Report Fields

The Heading

The Heading is at the very top of the report. It contains the inputting information. Time, Date, and Reference Number. The inputting information includes the name, social security number, and address of the applicant followed by the name of the requesting party.

Identifying Information

The next section of the report is the applicants' identifying information.

Here you'll find identifying information like your name, current address, social security number, date of birth, spouse's name (if applicable).

• The Consumer's name and address, number of subscribers reporting the address via the update tape (U=Update Tape, I=Inquiry, M=Manual Data).
  
• The Account number for the last subscriber reporting the consumer at their current address. The Consumer's previous address with source. (An asterisk preceding any address indicates the address was not entered on inquiry.)
• Consumer's Social Security number and other Social Security numbers reported on the consumer's file. An asterisk denotes any SSN not matching the inquiry.
  
• The Consumer's year of birth.
• The Consumers Employer's name and address including time frame reported and source (U=Update Tape, I=Inquiry).
• The Consumers' Previous employer's name and address with time frame reported and source.
• Alternate names such as aliases, maiden or previous surnames, or nicknames associated with the consumer's file.

Public Records

If there are any civil actions with dollar amounts awarded, they will appear in a field named Public Records. Public Record information consists of bankruptcies, liens and civil actions against a consumer. This information will include:

• Reporting court's name.
• Original filing date with court.
• Status date if status is satisfied, released, vacated, discharged or dismissed.
• Reporting court's number.
• Amount of public record.
• Type of public record.
• Certificate or docket number.
• Code describing the consumer's association to the public record item per the Equal Credit Opportunity Act.
• Book and page number
• Plaintiff name.
• Liability and asset amounts for bankruptcies only.
• Voluntary indicator only. May display as VOLUN or INVOL.
• An asterisk preceding public record information or a tradeline indicated that information may need further review.

Trades

Under the trade portion of the credit report, creditors report the amounts of loans and credit cards with payment histories. The name of the creditor is in the left column, the credit amount information in the center column, and the payment history is in the right column. Note in the center column L stands for the Loan amount or Limit and H stands for the Highest Balance Owed on the Account.

The most common of the codes used to describe an accounts condition are as follows:

Payment History

On the far right hand side of the report is the consumer payment history for the past 25 months. These codes reflect the monthly status of an account and are displayed for balance reporting loans. Collections and charge-offs are not graded. These codes stand for:

Inquiries

The last area of the report is named inquiries. This is a list of companies that have inquired about the applicant's credit, usually for the purpose of extending new or additional credit. Numerous inquiries lower the applicant's summary score about two points per inquiry.

Related Articles:

• How to Improve Credit Score
• FICO Credit Score

  To order a copy of your Experian credit report, click here. Free Credit Report & Score from Experian