You Won't Believe How Many People Have Errors on Their Credit Report

Your credit score plays a big role in your life. Want to buy a home? The mortgage lender will run a credit check on you. Want to get one of the best cash back cards? There will be a credit check for that, too. In most states, your credit even affects how much you pay for car insurance.

If there's incorrect information on your credit report, that could lower your credit score. And unfortunately, this issue is much more common than many people realize.

Here's how many people have errors on their credit report

Consumer Reports and WorkMoney recently asked thousands of Americans to check their credit reports. Nearly half (44%) of those people found at least one credit report error. And 27% of those errors were serious enough to affect creditworthiness.

There were errors related to both financial information and personal information. Here were the most common types of errors that people found:

• Unrecognized debt reported to collections
• Unrecognized accounts
• Payments wrongly reported as late or missed entirely
• Wrong addresses
• Misspelled or wrong names

Because errors happen so often, it's important to check your credit report regularly. Some consumers have trouble with this -- 11% of the volunteers for this study had a hard time accessing their credit report. Once you know where to get yours, it's much easier.

How to pull your credit report

To get your credit report, go to AnnualCreditReport.com. This site is authorized by the federal government, and it lets you pull free weekly online credit reports. You don't need to check your credit report every week, but it's a good idea to do so at least once every six months to a year.

Here's how to use AnnualCreditReport.com:

• Select "Request your free credit reports."
• Fill out the form with the required information, including your name, date of birth, Social Security number, and address.
• Choose which credit reports you want (you have three total from the major consumer credit bureaus: Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion).
• Answer a few questions to verify your identity and get each report.

Once you've gotten your credit reports, you can save or print them. Make sure to pull a report from each of those three credit bureaus. Credit bureaus don't always have the exact same information on file. There could be a mistake on your Equifax report but not on your TransUnion report. If you only check one of them, you could miss errors.

Reviewing your credit report and fixing errors

Go over your credit report from each credit bureau to look for any mistakes. These can include accounts you don't recognize, incorrectly reported late payments, or an address where you've never lived.

If you find any errors, report them to the credit bureau that issued the credit report. All three credit bureaus let you file disputes online. If there's a mistake on your credit report from Experian, go to the Experian website and select the option to file a dispute. Contact the creditor that reported the incorrect information to dispute it with them, too.

By reviewing your credit reports at least once a year, you can make sure there's no inaccurate information weighing down your credit score. Another way to stay error-free is to sign up for a credit monitoring service. There are free options online, and many credit card issuers also offer this for their cardholders. Once you're signed up, you'll be notified of any changes to your credit history.