Got my Experian credit report some concerns

[Maulik]

www.freecreditreport.com (http://www.freecreditreport.com) is nice, I suggest you employ them yourself.

1) I was under the impression that your cell phone carrier relationship would be included on your credit report; it is a form of credit extended to you?

2) I have an open credit card from when I was 18 years old which I can't find a way to contact the old bank. It simply says: BP-Citi. How can I seek them out and close that account? Or, for purposes of credit should I simply keep it open and use it for small purchases?

[sammysusar]

1. i have paid alot of utility bill a few months late that never shows up on your credit report. also credit card payments that are less than 30 days dont show up.

2. just having one credit card and paying it off usually helps. my first credit card had about an 800 dollar limit. after paying that one off every month for a yr got one with a 4500 dollar limit to max out.

[Jersey Nick]

[ QUOTE ]
1) I was under the impression that your cell phone carrier relationship would be included on your credit report; it is a form of credit extended to you?

[/ QUOTE ]
Nope. It's just a service. They usually run a credit check on a potential customer before they will open an account just to make sure the person isn't a deadbeat.
[ QUOTE ]
2) I have an open credit card from when I was 18 years old which I can't find a way to contact the old bank. It simply says: BP-Citi. How can I seek them out and close that account? Or, for purposes of credit should I simply keep it open and use it for small purchases?

[/ QUOTE ]
You can't contact the bank? Don't you get a monthly statement from them? If not, then you probably don't have an account anymore. The history of that account stays on your record, usually for 5-7 years. If you still think you have an account go to the Citibank website and find a customer service number. Call them and ask them if you still have an account with them.

[swolfe]

1) These things only go on your credit report if you have a bad history with them. Bad history meaning outstanding bills that go to their collections departments after you haven't paid them for 90 days. They're not really giving credit, but they want to make sure you have a history of paying those who do.

2) There should have been a page at the end with all of the contact information for your creditors and how to contact them (some say only by mail/fax, some include a telephone number).

It won't have much of an impact, but closing inactive accounts will help your score so long as it's not the ONLY credit you have.

[eastbay]

[ QUOTE ]
www.freecreditreport.com (http://www.freecreditreport.com) is nice, I suggest you employ them yourself.

1) I was under the impression that your cell phone carrier relationship would be included on your credit report; it is a form of credit extended to you?


[/ QUOTE ]

No.

[ QUOTE ]

2) I have an open credit card from when I was 18 years old which I can't find a way to contact the old bank. It simply says: BP-Citi. How can I seek them out and close that account? Or, for purposes of credit should I simply keep it open and use it for small purchases?

[/ QUOTE ]

Keep it open. Closing accounts does NOT help your score, and can hurt it, because it will make your debt to credit ratio worse.

eastbay

[Maulik]

Additionally, I have a Dell Credit account open which is revolving, if I ever decided that I wanted to buy a computer from them and pay the 30% interest. I think closing this makes sense simply because I'll never use it- but eastbay said to keep the non use, credit card open as it affects my credit/debt ratio.

[sfer]

[ QUOTE ]
2) I have an open credit card from when I was 18 years old which I can't find a way to contact the old bank. It simply says: BP-Citi. How can I seek them out and close that account? Or, for purposes of credit should I simply keep it open and use it for small purchases?

[/ QUOTE ]

If you can't contact the bank, how can you use the card?

[TStoneMBD]

one thing to keep in mind is that when companies credit check you they check to see how much credit you have available. if for instance they think you are good for 4k worth of credit and see that you have 2k credit available through other companies they may only issue you a 2k credit card. they take in to account open credit lines because if something happens where you have to max out all of your cards, they have to compete with the other credit agencies for who gets paid first.

[eastbay]

[ QUOTE ]
I think closing this makes sense simply because I'll never use it

[/ QUOTE ]

You can almost never improve your score by closing anything, if that's what you're trying to do. You can lower it, however, but hurting your debt/credit ratio.

eastbay

[Jersey Nick]

[ QUOTE ]
Keep it open. Closing accounts does NOT help your score, and can hurt it, because it will make your debt to credit ratio worse.

[/ QUOTE ]
Closing accounts will help a person's score if he has too much credit - in other words, the debtor could potentially swamp himself with revolving debt. This does not apply to our OP.

[Johnny Richter]

[ QUOTE ]
1) I was under the impression that your cell phone carrier relationship would be included on your credit report; it is a form of credit extended to you?


[/ QUOTE ]

On a side note, the only phone carrier that i know of that actually improves your credit is Nextel.

[MowrMowr]

[ QUOTE ]
2) I have an open credit card from when I was 18 years old which I can't find a way to contact the old bank. It simply says: BP-Citi. How can I seek them out and close that account? Or, for purposes of credit should I simply keep it open and use it for small purchases?

[/ QUOTE ]

You can simply dispute the account with Experian (directions how are at the end of the credit report) and tell them the account has been closed. They will contact the bank on your behalf to make sure it's closed.

[eastbay]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
2) I have an open credit card from when I was 18 years old which I can't find a way to contact the old bank. It simply says: BP-Citi. How can I seek them out and close that account? Or, for purposes of credit should I simply keep it open and use it for small purchases?

[/ QUOTE ]

You can simply dispute the account with Experian (directions how are at the end of the credit report) and tell them the account has been closed. They will contact the bank on your behalf to make sure it's closed.

[/ QUOTE ]

Except that there's no reason to do that and good reason not to.

eastbay

[eastbay]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Keep it open. Closing accounts does NOT help your score, and can hurt it, because it will make your debt to credit ratio worse.

[/ QUOTE ]
Closing accounts will help a person's score if he has too much credit - in other words, the debtor could potentially swamp himself with revolving debt. This does not apply to our OP.

[/ QUOTE ]

The credit agencies do not know your income, so they do not know what "too much credit" is, other than signals you send out when you fail to repay.

eastbay

[swolfe]

[ QUOTE ]
Except that there's no reason to do that and good reason not to.

[/ QUOTE ]

dude, it's a gas card that's been inactive for years. closing it is not going to negatively impact his score.

[BottlesOf]

1. I don't think this is the case
2. If you haven't used it in years they may have automatically closed it, but you shouldn't go out of your way to close it, as this can erase the credit history.

http://biz.yahoo.com/pfg/e02credit/

[OtisTheMarsupial]

[ QUOTE ]


1) I was under the impression that your cell phone carrier relationship would be included on your credit report; it is a form of credit extended to you?

[/ QUOTE ]

It is a contract, a debt, but it won't show up on your report unless it goes to collections or something.

If you file for bankruptcy or something, you should list the cell phone company as a creditor.

[ QUOTE ]


2) I have an open credit card from when I was 18 years old which I can't find a way to contact the old bank. It simply says: BP-Citi. How can I seek them out and close that account? Or, for purposes of credit should I simply keep it open and use it for small purchases?

[/ QUOTE ]

There is a section at the bottom of the report that should list the contact information for all the creditors.

If it's not listed there, you should 1) contact the reporting agency (experian in this case) and ask them for the info and/or ask them to remove it from your report (since it's incomplete inormation and they can't actually verify the debt without an address of the creditor) and 2) find the company on your own - google, etc.

I had an issue like this a while ago. I accidentally wrote a bad check. The company called me and I went over there in person and paid the debt in cash. Stupid me, I lost the receipt. Well, somehow in the meantime the debt went to collections (weird because it was such a short period of time - a matter of weeks - but I think they were in the process of bankruptcy so that's why). So, the company went out of business and the collections agency kept saying I owed the debt. I fought it until finally they took it off my report because they had inaccurate records from the original creditor.

That learned me :/ Now I keep better records and I don't use checks anymore. I pay all my bills automatically online and everything else with my checkcard or cash. And I check my credit regularly because there is ALWAYS something weird going on with it that I have to fix.

I swear, it's like they're little gossip whores who don't care about getting the facts straight. Any little bit of evidence is enough. Man, it's annoying. For example, last time I checked, they had my name spelled 6 different ways (because idiots can't type it correctly) and they had a credit card on there that isn't even mine. Oh, and because my sister and I wanted to buy a house a while ago and so we applied for loans, they have us listed as married sometimes! It's ridiculous.