Finally checked my free annual credit report

I finally got around to checking my credit report using the free annual credit report that each of us is entitled to according to FTC regulations. I went to AnnualCreditReport.com and entered some information to enable my credit reports to be located. The FTC web site makes it easy to start the process, but each of the three main credit report vendors has their own quirky interface for how to verify your identity and then each has their own format for the actual report. Even so, that was the easy part of the process. The real work is carefully reading all of these cryptic notations and trying to determine if all of the information really is in order. The bottom line is that I am in reasonably good shape although there are lots of little oddities that I would like to clean up if it is not too much trouble.

I went through personal bankruptcy back in 2005 and that is all there in the reports. The good news is that the reports show it as being discharged and for the most part has proper remarks on my various credit cards indicating that they were part of my bankruptcy filing.

It was odd that my Diners Club card was not listed at all on two of the reports and the third report says that it was written off as a bad debt and without any mention of my bankruptcy.

A New York State tax lien which I "satisfied" over a year ago is still listed but is not marked as being paid yet on all three reports. I should try to get that fixed.

There were a couple of phantom credit card accounts which seem to be cases where a new card had been issued to replace an existing card. In one case one of those accounts is listed as being in good standing while the other was negative and subject to the bankruptcy filing.

A phantom credit line for a closed bank account was in good standing. There is no way for me to access it since the bank account is gone, so it is simply floating out there. It does not appear to be causing any harm.

There are also a couple of old accounts that I thought had been closed years ago but still show as open and in good standing. I could try to get them closed, but they may actually help make my credit look better.

One annoyance is that since so many banks had been involved in mergers and acquisitions I ended up with lots of Bank of America and Chase accounts. Trying to sort them out and figure out the original bank that I knew when I used the card is a pain.

I do not have any plans to try to fix the oddities in the very near term, but eventually I may try to fix some of them just to see what the process is like. I am simply content that there are no major unexpected problems.

-- Jack Krupansky