While consumers are often urged to take advantage of the free once-a-year opportunity to request a credit report and make sure they aren’t riddled with errors, a new survey suggests many Americans simply aren’t heeding the suggestion.
A new survey from Bankrate.com found that more than one-third of American adults – roughly 35% – have never requested their credit reports.
When it comes to not checking credit reports, both millennials and older consumers were the most likely culprits. Nearly 44% of senior citizens (those 65 years of age or older) report they have never checked their credit reports, while 41% of consumers ages 18 to 29 have never reviewed the records.
While nearly half of costumers surveyed – roughly 48% – say they have checked their credit reports, the frequency at which they do so is troubling.
Of the consumers who have checked their reports, only 23% do it yearly, while 14% say they typically go more than year between reviews.
Bankrate analyst Jeanine Skowronski says in a statement, that many consumers often wait too long before pulling their reports, risking the possibility that errors are marring their credit worthiness.
“Monitoring your credit goes well beyond scanning a three-digit number,” she says in a statement. “Americans need to thoroughly review their credit reports for errors or signs of fraud.”
As Consumerist has reported in the past, fixing an error on one’s credit report can often be a long and tedious task – something that shouldn’t be left unnoticed until you absolutely need to qualify for that loan.
In fact, negative info on your credit report can linger for up to seven years, even if your debt record is otherwise pristine.
So if you’re one of the millions of consumers who have never reviewed their credit report, there’s no time like the present.
AnnualCreditReport.com is the site you can go to in order to get reports from each of the three main bureaus — Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion — once per year for no cost.
But, according to Skowronski, just getting your hand on the report isn’t enough.
“They also need to understand what factors, like missed payments or high debt to available credit ratios, are driving their credit in order to improve it,” she says.
For help deciphering what those numbers mean, our colleagues at Consumers Union’s DefendYourDollars.org have put together a primer on the topic.
Survey: Americans embrace free credit scores [Bankrate.com]
