How Do I Get Information Reported to the Credit Reporting Agencies?

Just about all creditors that you have an account with will report your information to the credit reporting agencies that they normally report to. There are some creditors that don't report your information to the credit bureau unless your account becomes seriously delinquent. If your information is not reported to the credit bureau and your payments have been paid on time, then you for the most part you cannot use that creditor as a credit reference. The best way to get your information reported to the credit bureau is to contact that creditor and put in a request.

They will send in the appropriate information to the credit reporting agency. This information should be available in approximately 30 days or less. The credit bureaus normally up date information on the first of the month. New information should be updated no later than the first week of the month. Once this information is reported it should start contributing to the calculation of your credit score. Of course if you are late that information will help to lower your credit score. Even though your creditor is sending in your information at a date different from the opening day of the account anyone viewing your credit file will see the actual opening date not the date it was sent in. So everyone gets the entire credit history that you had with a particular creditor.

After your information is reported they should update your information on a monthly basis. Most companies report information to the bureaus by some type of electronic transmission. If any information is reported in error you can always dispute the information with the credit reporting agency and they should get it resolved in a timely manner. There have been some instances where consumers have had information removed from their credit files and some how the information shows up once again two or three months down the line. That's why it's a good idea to get a copy of your credit report at least once a year. You can keep on top of the things that are impacting your credit score and challenge those things which should not belong on your file due to an error. You can actually get a copy of your report from this website, www.annualcreditreport.com.

Unfortunately if you have bad history and you want the information removed it cannot be removed. Derogatory credit must remain on your credit file for a certain amount of time depending on the type of delinquency.