Credit reports are often enigmatic and difficult to understand. It is possible not to understand them at all or even misunderstand if you do not know how to read a credit report. Even very experienced people find it puzzling to read and comprehend a credit report. There are some areas that need to be understood which usually skip your knowledge. Let us examine what these fine points are which may be violations of the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). The FCRA was established by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) along with the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) to ensure fair debt collections.

Six simple tests you can conduct on your credit report to find if there are any violations:

1.The fields where you can frequently identify mistakes or violations in but fields that just get ignored usually are your name, address and social security number. Scrutinize your personal information and if you realize your name is misspelled or your address is incorrect in the credit report or the mentioned social security number is not yours or the name is completely different, these are violations of the FCRA and should be dealt with immediately.

2.If a company has listed a tradeline on your credit report, the company must provide its full name and complete address along with the contact information. If the potential company has listed a tradeline on your credit report and has not mentioned the complete details, this is a violation of the FCRA and can be complained.

3.There is a statute of limitations for the FCRA that requires the negative tradelines on your credit reports older than seven years and the positive tradelines older than ten years should be removed. You can establish this point by going through the Date of Last Activity (DOLA) of the timeline on your credit report.

4.Reaging is a violation of the FCRA. 'Reaging' is companies using inaccurate DOLA to stay on credit report tradelines. It is better to check for these 'reaged' accounts. Companies that practice 'reaging' are violators of the FCRA and are liable under the act.

5.According to the FCRA, medical institutions names should not be mentioned in tradelines on a credit report. Observe carefully for medical debt tradelines. Pay close attention to any tradelines for medical debt. Medical debt tradelines are not allowed to list the name of the institution where the medical care was received. If this is listed then this medical tradeline must be removed from credit report.

6.If you had errors on your credit report that you have disputed and requested for corrections, still appear on your credit report, this is an FCRA violation. Non- validated tradelines still reflecting on your credit report despite your requesting for a validation of the tradeline, account for violation of the FCRA.

Consumers are extremely hurt by the carelessness of creditors, credit bureaus and unethical practices of collection agencies. By pointing out these violations, you can make them back down and remove negative entries. Fight back! The law specifically allows you to take these losers to court and win money!