Credit & Credit Report. What is Credit and why do you need credit?

Credit & Credit Report. What is Credit and why do you need credit?
Summary: Webster dictionary defines credit as: "Reputation of trustworthiness; Influence derived from the good opinion or confidence of others..." In other words, credit is the amount of financialinfluence a person possess.
Article: Wherever you live in this crazy world of genocide, suicide, murder, rape, or other crimes of human against human, or adults against children,... when every religion claims and repeats to enforce the same ideology that "we are all brothers and sister", credit is the "ideology"/concept of living a better life. It does not mean that credit or money will bring happiness but it provides us a better lifestyle. With credit, you can buy a better car than an embarrassing clunker we may drive. It allows us to have roof over family's heads, gives us opportunity to own better furnishings, and so much more. The concept of credit is practically saturated in our lifestyles to the extent that we cannot draw a distinguishing line.

Have you ever heard your parents or grandparents tell you, "we used to go to the grocery store down that street, picked up whatever we needed and if we didn't have money to pay right then, we would ask the store owner or manager to add the items to our bill and next time we come in, we'll pay the bill..." It was a trustworthy relationship (as described in the credit definition-above) people had a few decades ago. However, that type of trust seems to be a thing of the past. Now, we live in a bigger, more crowded, and distrusting world. Most to all of those mom and pop stores have been closed, become major corporations or that the employees' and managements' "ideologies" have changed. It is also because some of us have abused the "Trustworthiness afforded to us by others." Although some utility companies may still apply some concept of the old school credit and trust us; however, they still request a cash deposit or ask to see our credit report in advance of connecting our services, which takes us to the next paragraph.

What is a Credit Report? As a result of the changes in our lifestyles, distrust and other issues discussed in the paragraph above, for profit companies (Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion) have been established to obtain, process and hold our history of trustworthiness ("credit history"). These companies, which are called credit reporting agencies or "credit bureaus", have been receiving our credit history, accumulating, holding and processing them into an organized, readable format (called credit report) for others who are willing to lend us money (Creditor). Therefore a credit report is a collection of your payment history for loans and credit cards of over the past several years. As a result, whenever you want to purchase something using Other People's Money (OPM), the one who wants to lend you money or extend credit in some fashion, would want to pull-obtain/retrieve your credit report.

Note: Since we mentioned "several years", lets make this phrase clear. a. If you opened an account and the account is still open, then it will be reported on your credit report (also called "credit file") from the date the account was opened... now read b. b. When an account closes, it still remains and reported on your credit report for yet another seven years. c. Now if the account was in good standing and closed that way, there will be a note/comment on your credit report (on the last line of the history for this account) that will say, "account closed at consumer's request." However, if the account was in default (you missed payments and the creditor was forced to close the account) then, it will state, "account closed by credit grantor." d. If the account has a balance and was not paid at the time it was closed, then depending on the type of account, it will report serious negative on your credit report such as "Collection," "Charge-off," "Repossession," "Foreclosures," or some other adverse wordings (depending on the type of account you were holding. (For more in depth information, please read the book called, "Your Credit = Your Life, Fix It Now!" e. Whichever type of accounts you may have (whether good or bad), it will NOT be reported for more than sever years on your credit report, UNLESS, you file bankruptcy and include some accounts in your bankruptcy petition; therefore those accounts will be reported longer (based upon the type of bankruptcy filed).

Why credit repair is important? First let's make something clear. Although a lot of credit repair companies want to mislead you by making you to believe creditors and credit bureaus are horrible devils from "hell", the truth is that mistakes can be made by all parties. The same way that we may make a mistake and forget to pay a bill on-time (once or twice), the creditors may report inaccurate information by mistake. There is no law broken. However, the law is breached when a creditor or a credit bureau does NOT want to fix the mistake, argue with you or abuse their discretion. As stated in the last paragraph of "What are Credit Bureau's Responsibilities?", a bureau is responsible to report accurate information and any evidence of inaccuracy must be resolved in favor of consumers. This includes when a creditor or a collection agency does not reply to the bureau's request for correct information. See the book mentioned above.

The way the credit system works is similar to the court system. You are presumed innocent until proven guilty. However, in the court system a person that is charged with a crime, is arrested, taken to jail, finger printed, booked, a bond is set (in most cases), then released on bond until a later date when through a series of court hearing the person is proven innocent or guilty. Although most credit repair companies want to make you believe that the credit system works in the reverse order, this is not true and do NOT be deceived. As I stated above, mistakes can take place by both (your creditor and or the credit bureaus). It is your job to look at your reports, find the inconsistencies and contact the bureaus or the creditors to resolve the issues. Discussed in the resource mentioned.

Sine the inconsistencies can take place accidentally or inadvertently, no one can be blamed UNLESS you notify the party who made the mistake and no corrections are made. Some credit repair companies use scare tactics concerning credit bureaus to get your business.