Improve Your Credit Profile
Along with making your payments on time and staying within your credit limits, there are steps you can take to improve your credit profile.

4 Important Steps

Step 1. Make sure your credit reports are accurate.

• Check your credit reports every six months to make sure that all information is correct.
• If you find mistakes in your record, you have the right to ask the credit bureau to investigate the disputed information and correct the error at no charge.
• If the bureau does not correct the situation to your satisfaction, you can add a written statement of less than 100 words to your credit file.

Need to contact the 3 major credit bureaus?
Here are their phone numbers and mail/Web site addresses.

Step 2. Review your total credit profile.

• If you have too much total debt and can pay some of it down, you may want to do so.
• Closing accounts and reducing your debt can be important when you want to apply for a mortgage or car loan. It shows lenders you can manage credit wisely.

Step 3. Establish credit in your own name.

• When it comes to your credit, take control. One way you can do that is by establishing credit exclusively in your name.
• Consider an "individual" account rather than a "joint" account in which responsibility for the loan is shared with another person.

Step 4. Make sure your credit is reported regularly.

• When account information is not reported to credit bureaus, your total financial history can appear inaccurate.
• Do business with companies that are committed to reporting your account information regularly to the credit bureaus. We regularly inform the credit bureaus of our customers' standing with us.
• To make sure your credit information is complete, call your lender(s) to confirm that your account information is being reported or look at a copy of your credit report.