When you pull your credit reports online, you may be surprised to realize your credit score is not showing up. Show Why isn't your credit score on your credit reports, and what can you do about it? What's a credit score?
The first thing to understand is that credit reports and credit scores are totally different products. Credit scores are an interpretation of that data in your credit reports that creditors use to gauge your creditworthiness. The higher your credit score, the better access you have to desirable financial products, like credit cards and low-rate loans. Credit reports do not typically include credit scores. However, Experian adds a credit score to reports that are mailed to consumers. Because credit scores are calculated from the data in credit reports, a mistake there could be reflected in a lower-than-deserved score. Credit-scoring formulas look at much the same information, with some small variations in how they weight the factors. They all have the same goal: to predict how likely you are to repay borrowed money. Get score change notifications See your free score anytime, get notified when it changes, and build it with personalized insights.  What's a credit report?Unlike a score, your credit report is just that, a report. It lists your entire credit profile for creditors to examine and then evaluate your creditworthiness — both independent of credit scores and in conjunction with them. The information comes from creditors and public records. Reports are voluntary, and some creditors send data to only one or two bureaus, while others report to all three. The reports cover a lot: open and closed accounts (also called tradelines), amounts owed, credit limits, late payments, collections actions, public records and more. (Here's a guide on how to read your credit reports.) You're entitled to a free credit report from each of the three big credit bureaus weekly through the end of 2023. Use Annualcreditreport.com to get them. You can — and should — dispute errors on your credit reports and get them corrected. Mistakes on your reports could affect your access to credit, cost you a job opportunity or make it harder to rent a home. How can you monitor your report and score for free?
Credit scores used to be available only if someone paid for them. That someone usually was a potential lender who wanted to estimate the likelihood of a potential customer repaying a loan or credit card charges. That still happens. Consumers have not always had access to their scores. Now, however, scores are widely available to consumers for free from a variety of sources. When picking a source of a free score so you can monitor your credit, look for one that includes free credit report information as well, such as NerdWallet, which has scores and reports that update weekly. That gives you a convenient way to check your credit health any time and monitor your progress. It's smart to choose a particular score and monitor that one, using the same credit bureau and scoring model. Why aren't all my accounts listed on my Equifax credit report?There are a couple of reasons why some accounts may not be listed on your Equifax credit report:
card-on-credit-report Q: I have a credit card that I have been using for about five years, and [it] has never showed up on my credit reports. I usually keep the card paid to a zero balance. How do I get this to show up? It should help my score. — Anonymous A. Opening a new line of credit and managing it responsibly can make you feel like you're on top of the world. But it's easy to get frustrated when your good behavior goes unnoticed by the credit reporting agencies, which is allegedly what happened to the Credit.com commenter above. What's a responsible cardholder who makes on-time payments to do? And is something wrong with this person's report? We turned to Rod Griffin, director of public education for Experian, a major credit reporting agency, to find out. A Number of Possibilities There are several possibilities for why a credit card account hasn't appeared on all three credit reports, Griffin said by phone, referring to the three major agencies, Experian, TransUnion and Equifax. However, "the universal answer is that lenders are not required to report your account information to the credit reporting companies. For some reason, [this commenter's] particular lender has chosen not to report that credit card, and that's a business decision the bank can make." To avoid a similar headache, Griffin recommended asking any lender you open an account with if they report that credit card to the bureaus. Find out to whom they report, and then "you can likewise check the contract to see if it says they report that information," he said. When asked why some businesses choose not to report a credit card, Griffin said that in some cases it's simply a business decision that may be related to cost-saving measures. "For example, a small local bank or regional bank may choose to report to just one credit reporting company instead of two or three," he said. Then again, the commenter may want to verify that his credit card is indeed a credit card and not a debit or prepaid debit card. "Both debit and prepaid cards look like a credit card, but they're cash cards, so those are not reported," Griffin said. The commenter may also want to check if they have a secured credit card. Secured credit cards are similar to prepaid debit cards in that the cardholder puts up a cash deposit as collateral. Although this is technically a line of credit, some secured credit card issuers don't report to the bureaus. The vast majority of credit cards, however, are reported to the big credit agencies. Finally, Griffin said that the cardholder's status as an authorized user, joint holder or sole owner of the account could affect whether the card was reported. Authorized users' activities do not always appear on a credit report, he explained, while joint accounts do. "That could make a difference," he said. Another reason a credit card may not appear on your credit report may pertain to the age of the account, Bruce McClary, vice president of communications for the National Foundation for Credit Counseling, said via email. "It may be that the account [in question] is too new to appear. Usually the inquiry will appear first, followed by the newly opened account within 30 to 60 days." Yet "that is assuming the creditor reports that activity to the credit reporting agency," he added. This is most likely not the case for our commenter, who said they've been using their card for the past five years. But it is something to keep in mind if you find yourself in a similar situation. What You Can Do Though the commenter shouldn't panic, it's a good idea to ensure that a card you've been managing responsibly (i.e., paying on time with a reasonable amount of debt) appears on your credit report, as this will help boost your score. And if the commenter has reason to believe that the card hasn't appeared due to an error or a case of mixed files, which Griffin said sounds unlikely based on the information provided, the commenter could draft a letter of dispute to the responsible agencies. It's also a wise move to get in touch with the creditor to see what's going on. Above all, he should pull a report from each one to make sure that he's covered all his bases. It isn't hard to dispute credit report errors, although the process can take some time. If you're unsure of how your credit card is affecting your finances, a good place to start your research would be with your credit report, which you can get a summary of for free on Credit.com. You can also pull your credit reports for free once a year at AnnualCreditReport.com.
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Why isnt my credit card showing up on my credit report?
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