Understanding how the report is set up and what each part represents can seem like a huge task, but it is not quite as difficult as it seems.

Four Main Parts

Your credit report will consist of four main sections. Each section contains different financial and personal information. This gives creditors a glimpse into all areas of your financial life.

Personal Identity

The first part is your personal identity information. Your name, addresses, and so forth. You will need to report any misspelling of your name or any other wrong information. Although it is rare, sometimes your credit report will include the records of someone with an identical name.

Credit History

Here is where all your past financial records are recorded. Things you will find here are the following:

• Creditors and account numbers
• What kind of credit account it is
• The total amount of the loan and what you still owe
• Your bill payment history
• Anything sent to collections or late payments
• Anything charged off by creditors
• Public Records
• The third section will consist of public records. This section can actually hurt you more than a bad payment history. Here will be recorded any public notices, judgments, and bankruptcies.
• Things like tax liens are here also. Ideally, this area of the report will be totally blank.

Inquiries

Listed here is the name of anyone who has inquired into your credit report. This can be quite extensive.

There are two types of inquiries:

• Hard inquiries – these are inquiries by places to which you have applied for credit . You, the consumer, have initiated the process.
• Soft inquiries – these are inquiries made by companies offering you products like pre-approved credit cards.