Have you checked your credit report lately?

Have you ever run across someone that is obsessed with staying young? This is the type of person that spends a great deal of time trying products, procedures and researching healthy ways to live. My experience with this kind of person is that they are so busy trying not to age that their life passes them by. I have also found that they are not the most fun people to be around.

As I near retirement I have made plans for my retirement years that allow me to have as much fun as possible. I am not going to spend my time fretting about time passing, I am going to try to enjoy as many minutes of my life as I can. In order to do this I have made investments through the years and have paid my bills in a timely fashion. I decided that I should check my credit report to make sure that everything was in order. I was planning on buying a second condominium in another part of the country so that I could travel between two homes. I have one home in the northern states so I wanted a second home in an area with a warmer climate to spend my winter months. I knew that the first thing a realtor would ask me would be questions about my financial situation. I thought if I had a copy of my credit report we could move ahead quickly.

Author's note: you can get your credit report for free once a year. Always make sure everything that appears on your report actually refers to your credit history, and not someone else with the same name.

I was very thankful that I had run my credit report in advance. There were two huge mistakes on it. I have a very common last name. I had two outstanding loans on my report that belonged to someone else with my same name. As I have gotten older I have been very diligent about using my full middle name on my legal documents; however I was not very good at doing this when I was younger. A person with my same first and last name as well as middle initial had an outstanding student loan at a private university. The loan was for a substantial amount of money. I did not get my degree from this university; however I had taken a few continuing education classes there. The classes that I had taken were paid for in cash. I called the accounting office of the university and asked them to look into the loan situation that was placed on my record. After several minutes on hold and several questions about my previous addresses I was informed that this had been a huge mistake on the part of the university. They promised to write letters to clear my credit rating and to make sure that the correct person was billed for the loan. It took several months for my credit report to come back accurate.

You can get a free copy of your credit report from www.annualcreditreport.com

Yahoo! News Search Results for Credit report
Yahoo! News Search Results for Credit report

TD Bank to report credit trading hit (AP via Yahoo! Finance)
Toronto-Dominion Bank says it will report $350 million Canadian dollars in after-tax credit trading losses in its fourth quarter.
TD Bank to report credit trading hit (Boston Globe)
Toronto-Dominion Bank , the parent company of Maine-based TD Banknorth, says it will report $272 million in after-tax credit trading losses in its fourth quarter.
TD Bank to report credit trading hit (KIVI Boise)
Associated Press - November 20, 2008 11:03 AM ET TORONTO (AP) - Toronto-Dominion Bank says it will report $350 million Canadian dollars ($272 million) in after-tax credit trading losses in its...
TD Bank to report $350 million in fourth-quarter credit losses (The Canadian ...
TORONTO - TD Bank (TSX:TD) says it will book $350 million in credit trading losses in its fourth quarter, the latest of Canada's big banks to report exposure to troubled financial markets.
CreditCards.com: Weekly Credit Card Rate Report (Business Wire via Yahoo! Fin...
AUSTIN, Texas----Annual percentage rates for new credit card offers rose this week, according to the CreditCards.com Weekly Credit Card Rate Report. However, that move was due to a change in the composition of cards offered rather than any APR increases by banks.
How to check your credit report online (Yahoo! Tech Advisors)
Reader Mark B. writes: In a recent article you wrote about checking your credit report with the three agencies, three times a year. What three credit reports? How do I get there? Is there a fee? Sometimes I take for granted certain things that some of us have known for years. But it's never too late to start checking your credit report: And if you're old enough to have a credit card, ...
Economy falters before budget report next week (AFP via Yahoo! News)
The economy, battered by the global credit crunch and facing a recession, suffered more bad news on Thursday before a key budget report due next week from the country's government.
Banks back mandatory CDS clearing: report (Reuters via Yahoo! News)
Some of the world's top banks are backing a proposal to develop a mandatory central clearing system for the $55 trillion credit default swap (CDS) market, a report in the Financial Times said on Thursday. Dealer banks are stepping up efforts to back CDS clearing to head off a more radical overhaul, which includes a proposal to move trading of over-the-counter CDS on to an exchange, the report ...
Credit institutions requested to report on real estate loans (Nhân Dân)
Nhan Dan - Credit organisations have been requested to give full report on their loans to incomplete real estate projects by October 31, 2008 and loans to real estate sector in October 2008, according to a recently-issued document by the State Bank of Vietnam.
TD Bank to report $350 million in fourth-quarter credit losses (Canoe Money)
TORONTO - TD Bank (TSX:TD) will book a $350-million loss on its credit trading activities in its fourth quarter, but will still have an overall profit thanks to offsetting gains and its retail banking operations.