Hey Bud, Where’s My File?

Paul,

About a year ago, my Trans Union credit report started pulling up blank.  I contacted Trans Union and they said I have no credit file. I know that I have a credit file becuase I can pull my Experian and Equifax and everything is there. 

Today I tried to pull my Experian Credit Report and…It came up blank.  I tried to contact experian via telephone with no luck.

I’m a little confused becuase I have a car loan with Wells Fargo, Credit Cards with Bank of America and HSBC.  I know that all of them report. 

Do you know what could be going on? or how I can fix this? 

Any advice would be great! 

Thank You
Amanda

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Hi Amanda,

Did you mean Experian or Equifax?  Equifax and Trans Union have a tendency to split files.  When files are split, one may be blank and the other may have all of the accounts.  You may have pulled the blank report.  That’s not a problem that you hear about too often with Experian.  Plus, when you called the CRA, they should have been able to advise of the split file.

Another concern could be whether or not the creditors report to all three.  You’ve named some large furnishers and that’s probably not the problem; but I would call the furnishers and ask them why their tradeline isn’t being reported to the CRA in question.

One final note is the personal identifying information you are using to pull the credit report can affect the report that is generated (i.e. your address, married or maiden name, etc.).

I’m going to give you the Stump The Experts award for the evening followed by advice from the Federal Trade Commission for “Adding Accounts to Your File”:

If you’ve been told that you were denied credit because of an “insufficient credit file” or “no credit file” and you have accounts with creditors that don’t appear in your credit file, ask the consumer reporting companies to add this information to future reports. Although they are not required to do so, many consumer reporting companies will add verifiable accounts for a fee. However, understand that if these creditors do not report to the consumer reporting company on a regular basis, the added items will not be updated in your file.

Thanks for the questions and hope this helps.

Paul

(source=ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/credit/cre21.shtm)