Credit reports are incredibly important. In that single report, you will find a complete history of any credit agreements you have made during your lifetime.
It will also show a true reflection of how much money you have to your name, and financial decisions that you have made throughout your life.
As credit reports are so personal, you might expect your actual personal information to have an impact on them. But, in reality, it doesn’t.
Throughout their life, the average person will move house around 11 times. When you move house, there is an endless list of places where you have to update your address.
From the DMV to the bank, there are so many places you need to change your address. But what about your credit report?
In this guide, we’ll be telling you how to change your address on your credit report, and discussing the importance of this action. So, to find out more, keep on reading.
In one word, no, you don’t need to change the address on your credit report if you move. At least you don’t in most cases.
Credit reports are incredibly intelligent pieces of information, they take on information from a variety of sources automatically. So, in most cases, your credit report will update your address automatically.
You might be wondering how your credit report will be able to find out that you have moved, but the answer is simple. The bank. On your credit report, you will find evidence of every single bank account you have ever opened.
When you move house, you are legally required to update your address with the bank. So, the bank will then pass on this chance of information to your credit reporting agency.
That being said, it is best to check on your credit report if you move. After all, this information is updated automatically, and most machines run into errors.
So, even though the address is supposed to update automatically, there is no guarantee that this will happen.
If your address doesn’t automatically update on your credit report, it is best to manually update it yourself. We will tell you how to do this shortly.
You might be wondering if this is important, or if errors in your personal information will affect your credit rating. So let’s take a look.
The main reason why it is important to check your personal information on your credit report, and update if necessary, is because of fraud.
Credit fraud is a lot more common than you might expect, and regularly checking your credit score allows you to spot this early on if it does happen to you.
Now, updating your address will not make you exempt from being at risk of credit fraud, but it will mean that you check your credit report more regularly.
When you check your credit report to see if your personal information is correct, this will give you the opportunity to spot any credits that you do not recognize.
Should you spot anything suspicious, this allows you to contact the necessary authorities to resolve the issue.
If you are not someone who regularly uses credit, then there is a good chance that you will not check your credit report that often. If you do not regularly check your credit report, then you are more at risk of falling victim to the credit report.
Should you be one of these people, then checking if your address is correct might be the only opportunity that you have to catch any fraud. So, it is best to regularly check that your personal information is up-to-date on your credit report.
If you find that any of the information on your credit report is incorrect, then you will need to dispute it. This goes for incorrect personal information, and incorrect financial information.
If you do find that your address hasn’t been updated on your credit report straight away, then it is best to wait a little while because it does take time to process. But if it doesn’t change within a month or two, it is best to dispute it.
To dispute any information on your credit report, you will need to use a credit report agency. If you are regularly checking your credit report, then you will have an agency that you are already using, so it is best to stick with them.
One of the most popular credit rating agencies is Experian, and with this company it is easy to dispute any issues. Experian has an online dispute center which you can use to file any disputes that you have.
Simply select the incorrect information and file the dispute. Once you have filed it, it will generally take around 30 days for you to hear back. When you do, there will usually be a lot of back and forth communication until the issue has been resolved.
You might expect incorrect personal information to impact your credit score, but it actually doesn’t.
So, if you contact a credit rating agency about your address being incorrect, you should not expect your credit score to change.
Your credit report is packed with lots of personal information, but not all of this information will actually affect your credit score. The best way to think about it is like an exam.
When you do an exam, you have to put your name and other personal information on it, but this does not count towards your results.
The same principle applies to credit scores. So, if you do dispute an incorrect address on your credit report, this will not cause your score to increase or decrease.
Summary
In short, it is fairly easy to change your address on your credit report. This is because most of the time, the credit rating agency will automatically update your address when you update it with the bank. But, if this fails to happen, you might need to dispute your address with the credit rating agency.
