What is the difference between a bureau-direct and a credit monitoring credit report?
It doesn’t take much effort or a trained eye to notice errors on your credit reports. In fact, I truly believe there is no such thing as an accurate credit report. However, there is a pretty huge difference between the credit reports you see
from credit monitoring services like Credit Karma, Credit Sesame, or even services that give the most detailed credit reports like Smart Credit, My Score IQ, or even MyFico than from credit reports that come directly from the credit bureaus.
Most Credit monitoring services purchase their data from only one credit bureau.
Knowing that most credit monitoring services do this, this causes a lot of data to be lost in the translation. So for instance, if Credit Sesame buys credit reports from Trans Union, then Trans Union is buying data from Equifax and Experian. The more the report data gets tossed around, the more data can be lost in the translation.
Credit reports from credit monitoring services do not supply all metro2 fields.
Metro2 is how your creditors report credit data to the credit bureaus. It is a standardized format for all 3 major credit bureaus. Credit monitoring reports do not give you all of the Metro2 data fields. This means you are missing out on dispute opportunities that could be the key to getting your disputed tradeline corrected or deleted.
If you are disputing accuracy, shouldn’t your dispute also be accurate?
Knowing data is lost in translation, and not all Metro2 fields are included in reports from credit monitoring services, any disputes based on these reports are likely to be inaccurate. The only way to ensure you are creating an accurate dispute is by using credit reports directly from the source, the credit bureaus directly. If you are calling out
inaccurate credit reporting, your disputes should always be accurate. This is why I cannot stand it when I see a credit repair company, or a self help credit repair book selling their customers on credit monitoring and using a touch and go software that only disputes from those reports. At Credit Wellness Solutions, we only use credit monitoring services, and our software to help point us where to look, but we NEVER send disputes without looking directly at credit reports from the credit bureaus and drafting our disputes by hand to ensure we are disputing accuracy with accuracy. See the differences in our services in comparison to most of our competition.
disputes based on credit monitoring disputes are not admissible in court or arbitration.
In this video, my friend and one of our attorneys, John Watts explains why disputes based on credit monitoring reports. This is based on a client using a Credit Karma report to sue. Needless to say this case was shot down.
Basically credit monitoring credit reports are considered to be hearsay because the source was not directly from the source of the information.
What if i have purchased credit monitoring & 3 bureau reports from one of the credit bureaus?
Unfortunately, the same principle applies. That credit bureau purchases the data from the other 2. Some of the data is missing, and does not include all of the Metro2 fields. The credit reports from the other 2 bureaus would also be treated as hearsay in court or in arbitration.
Is credit monitoring useful for anything or worth the money?
Absolutely worth every penny! In a prior article, I discussed the importance of credit monitoring. You can see changes to your credit reports in real time as they happen which is very good to have. Knowing that fact you can mitigate and minimize the damage caused by identity theft and stop the thief in their tracks! Everyone should have credit monitoring and monitor their credit reports on a regular basis. Visit our website for the two services we recommend to everyone. Their features, ID Theft Insurance, and their alerts make their services worth every penny. To even have free services like Credit Karma, is better than having no monitoring at all.
Where can i get credit bureau-direct credit reports?
AnnualCreditReport.com was created as a result of a congressional mandate added to the FCRA that requires the 3 major credit bureaus to allow consumer to at least check their credit reports for free once a year. Awesome thing is, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the credit bureaus have allowed consumers to check their credit reports weekly for free. Although this may not last forever, at least for the foreseeable future consumers will be able to get their credit reports for free every week! Take advantage of this free resource and stay on top of your credit. We use this resource for our credit repair program and base all of our disputes on bureau-direct credit reports. Schedule a Free Consultation today to get started!
