Getting access to all of your raw data files directly from the credit bureaus can be tricky; but with Merrill Chandler’s help, it doesn’t have to be. Continuing with the second part of the Into the Madness series, Merrill guides us into the process of ordering consumer disclosures. Here, he discusses how you fill out the form properly to order free consumer disclosures that are authorized by federal law. He goes through one by one the information you need to input across Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian. Don’t miss out on the important things in this sometimes maddening process. Take note of what Merrill’s going to show you in this episode.

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Into The Madness Part 2: Ordering Consumer Disclosures

Equifax

We’re going to be doing part two of our Into The Madness. We’re going to be ordering the AnnualCreditReport.com credit profiles that are authorized by federal law that upon request you have access to all of your raw data files directly from the credit bureaus, Equifax, TransUnion, Experian. We need to fill out the form and know what to do in order to get the raw data files. We’re going to be talking about how to order free consumer disclosures that are authorized by federal law. Upon request, you get one per year. I’m ready to take off here. I’m at AnnualCreditReport.com. You go there and you request your free credit report.

Once you click that button, there are three steps to be able to do. They’re going to ask for your information. Here’s where the problem comes in. When you fill out the form, they’re going to use this information for ordering all three credit reports. The funny thing is and it’s not so funny, is that most of us, as you’ve learned in the personal borrower identity discussion we had previously, that different bureaus may have different data points regarding your name and your address, etc.

Fortunately, I put most of mine together so we should be able to get all three credit reports. Think of it this way, if they have to call and ask for and need more information from you, either by sending identity documents in or by needing to require a phone call from you so they can ask more security questions. If you can’t even get your credit profile from the bureaus because your identity is messed up, then you’ve got to understand no lender is going to give you money or that it’s going to be test limits. They’re not going to give you high automatic underwriting limits because they don’t even know who you are. This is a great test to find out what’s going on there. I’m going to put my information in here and we’re going to start filling this out. I’m going to go through and completely fill this out.

They’re kind to blank out the Social Security number so that I can type this in and then we’re putting in my address. ZIP+4 is not necessary. Have I lived at this address for two years or more? Yes. If you have not lived at the address two years or more, remember, in those previous addresses that you find on myFICO credit report that was part one of the Into The Madness series, that credit report is a little easier to acquire. I don’t need to put in any previous addresses in here. I’m going to click next. It’s asking request 1, 2 or 3 reports. I’m going to order only one report. The reason is that I want you to use myFICO credit report that you had obtained in part one of Into The Madness.

You’re going to see why we call it Into The Madness because this is such a mess trying to acquire these credit reports at a certain time. I’m going to go to Equifax this time. We’re going to order it, get a copy of it, then I’m going to come back and start over. What I recommend is that you use the name variation. When we were filling it out, where I put Merrill R. Chandler, if it has your entire middle name on Equifax, then you put in to know your full middle name and then choose the one that you’re looking at. Start with Equifax, then go to TransUnion, then go to Experian. Order each credit report using the information that is on that myFICO credit report. We’re going to hit next and it’s finding me for Equifax and I’m going to end up in the Equifax arena asking me for my last four digits of my Social Security, clicking on Equifax. Now, it’s going to ask me some security questions. I’m going to go through and fill these out.

It’s asking about a retail card because the low-value retail cards are not what I’m about. That is a no. You have a bank card open on or about July 2015. Who’s the credit provider for this? The only one I have is Wells Fargo. You’re going to check your myFICO credit report to ensure this is one of them. Use that. I happen to know by memory that is correct. We’re going to hit continue and we’re going to see, thank you for your order. I find that Equifax is the most difficult when it comes to ordering, but it gave it to me.

I don’t need to go through it now. That’s interesting. The advertisements here are for Credit Karma. See your credit score. That’s one of the things that they’re saying. Remember, I talked about when ordering a credit report, they want to sell you a credit score. Remember those credit scores, especially Credit Karma, that’s vantage score. That’s a FAKO score. Vantage credit score for 795. No bueno, we don’t want to do any of that. There’s my information and now I want to download the report right there at the top. Let’s continue here. This report confirmation number is important because that report information number is how you contact the bureaus to update and do different things.

TransUnion

My credit report is downloading and we will come to that in a moment. Let’s see what we got and we will close it down. Credit report. What we do is once we’re complete here, we’re going to go through reports in the next sections of Into The Madness. What we’re going to do is close this out completely and we’re going to open a new window and go back to AnnualCreditReport.com. We’re going to request a free credit report. I’m going to look at a TransUnion and look at how TransUnion has my name.

Ordering Consumer Disclosures: If you can’t even get your own credit profile from the bureaus because your identity is so messed up, then you got to understand that no lender’s going to give you money.

I know that all of them are the same. I’m putting them all the same. You may have different variations on your name as submitted, as recorded by the different bureaus on your myFICO report. Use your name and your address as it is written in myFICO so that you can have a simple execution as possible. We’re getting all that done and my address is the same. Everything’s correct. Have you lived in this address for two years or more? I’m putting yes. I’m hitting next and I’m going to request one report. I’m going to go to TransUnion. That’s what I’m looking at. I’ve already done the Equifax. We go in there. They’re going to ask me their security questions. Thank you for selecting TransUnion for your free credit report. They’re confirming my address, name, birthday, etc.

They want an email address, so I’m giving them my personal borrower identity email address. I’m putting that in and they require my phone number. I’m also giving them my personal borrower identity phone number. This is not a cell, this is my lender and creditor’s contact phone number, the same as with my email. If I get an email at this email address, I know it’s from a lender or it’s been sold to list and I can continue to work on getting removed from those email lists that we discussed in the Protect Your Identity episode.

I’ve given them the numbers that they need. Everything else checks out. It’s waiting to load my information and we’re going to see which security questions they’re going to ask. If I’m putting in the data points that they have on record, everything’s going to be solid. They’re asking, what is the monthly payment on here? What’s the monthly payment for my auto lease? Which of the following is the street number of your most recent address? We’ll look at that. It’s none of the above. I’ve only had one address because it is my PBID, my Personal Borrower Identity Address. Which of these street names are you associated with?

Experian

We should successfully confirm my identity. I’m doing the exact same thing here. I notice they’re trying to sell me a score. Yes, I’d like to see my score. What I want is to come down here and save as a PDF. Let’s try to save as a PDF. You can print the report and now it’s downloading once again to my desktop and there is my PDF. Part of the reason why I’m getting my approvals and getting high approvals through automatic underwriting is that they know exactly who I am. Let’s see if I get three for three. Now, what do we do? What’s the next step? We are going to exit out of this browser window and start a new one straight from the beginning, a new window. Go to AnnualCreditReport.com again. When we go to the website, request a free credit report, fill out the report. Once again, I’m looking at my Experian data. You are going to look at your myFICO Experian data and put in your information. For me, it’s the same across all three. I’m adding my birthday and then once my birthday is in, then I put in my Social Security number.

I’m going to hit next. I’m getting the last credit report, Experian, and we’re going to go into Experian. They’re going to test. We could not verify the address you provided. Remember previously where the lender had put in a business address in my personal address space. Remember that when I was working on my business lines of credit? They may have something. Let’s see where it takes us given that possible data. Personal information. It did give it to me and update. The report number is important because that’s how you’ll contact if there are things amiss when you’re trying to do disputes.

The Madness

As we’ve talked about when you’re disputing your identity pieces, when you’re disputing accounts for your accuracy audit, all of those things, you’re going to need that report number in any one of the three bureaus. Some call it file number, some it’s a report number, etc. I’m going to go up and I’m going to say print your report. I want to print the report. I’m going to turn it into a PDF, save as a PDF and dropping that onto my desktop. I have finished downloading and with only one small snafu, so what do I do? I noticed that they didn’t have my current address, the only address I’ve had for twelve years, on record. That means they gave it to me because everything else worked out, but that means that I need to check out and shore up the reporting of that data on my Experian. Remember where it says the name ID?

We discussed this previously, but that name ID is associated with various credit tradelines, various accounts that are being listed on my credit report. They’re showing me there are different variations of my address. There’s where the problem is, 101. There’s a transposition of some of the data. I’m going to go to dispute that. This one doesn’t have a Suite 110, there’s the problem, and then West Rear Street. That’s the old business address that got submitted because they captured on an inquiry. Remember when I was talking about getting my Wells Fargo business line of credit? The banker inputs my business’s former business address into the application under my address.

They captured it. They want to capture everything and I need to dispute that one. This one is 13 East 110. Each one of these has an address ID. Every single account is associated with one of these addresses. Every single account that’s in my files is associated with one of these addresses. When we look at this, we want to make sure that those addresses are not jamming up my files. Part of how we do these identity disputes is that we only want the positive accounts associated with the correct identity and federal law, FTC, a commentary on the Fair Credit Reporting Act allows for us to have only our true legal documented identity be reported on our credit profile. This is the raw data where we get it.

Next time, we’re going to be discussing how to do a deep dive into these credit profiles and what to look for. I’m going to be using somebody else’s profiles for that because I want to show some negative accounts. In my profile, I don’t have any, but I want anybody who might have a derogatory account. I need you to understand what to do about it and how to read those reports. That’s why we call it Into The Madness. There are many ways this can go sideways and I want to make sure that you at least have the best education in doing so. If you have any comments or questions, put them on here. We look for them all the time. We’d love to know what’s going on and we want to make sure that you have all the intel.

Ordering Consumer Disclosures: To get to the bottom of your fundability™, you got to know what the databases are reporting on you.

Remember, one of my success principles is only the truth is actionable. To get to the bottom of your fundability™, you’ve got to know what the databases are reporting on you. The only way to do that is to do the dive into the madness and get your credit profiles. Two things may happen. I was able to get all three credit profiles effortlessly. At any point, if your data points that you’re putting in this application, it will pop-up on your screen and it will say, “You need to call this number.” That means they want a verbal verification of further data points so that they can get you your credit profile.

Some will say we’re going to mail it to you, especially Equifax. “We’re going to mail you a copy of this.” Don’t despair. Get the raw data and then that’s when you can be empowered to fix it. I wanted to show you how to look at this data, how to fill out the credit report, request information, and you do it by each bureau that you have that’s listed on your myFICO credit report. Don’t falter. If you’re asked to mail something in, if you’re asked to call them, do it immediately. If it had done it here, I would have included that and we would have and we had gone through the process.

It didn’t happen, so I need you to get everything prepared because only the truth is actionable. Remember, one name, that’s what we want. I have five addresses. I am committed. I need to get that to one address and they were all the same address. I’m going to make a phone call here to remove those addresses. Maybe I’ll add that or I’m going to call up and tell them because they’re all variations on my real address, except for the one that the Wells Fargo loan officer mistakenly answered. Thank you for joining me. We’re going into part three Into The Madness where we review an Equifax credit profile so that we can determine what the data points that are being reported are and whether or not there’s something that we need to fix. I hope you continue to push forward and nail down your fundability™.

Important Links:

• AnnualCreditReport.com
• myFICO
• Protect Your Identity – Previous episode

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