Experian: the file most lenders read first

A friend who teaches piano says every student plays the same Bach differently and every one of them is convinced they're playing it straight. The three bureaus are like that. Same furnishers, same law, same you — and three files that don't match, each one certain it's the accurate one.

This is the first of three articles on the big three, and it starts with Experian because it's the file the most lenders read first, and because its report format is the one most people learn on.

What's distinctive

Experian's report leads with personal information, then accounts, then inquiries, then public records if any. It's the most legible of the three, and it's the one that most often carries the fullest employment history and address list, because Experian is aggressive about identity data.

It's also the bureau behind several of the services that show up elsewhere in this series: Experian RentBureau for rental history, Clarity Services for short-term lending, Experian Verify for employment. When one of those files has something on you, it doesn't necessarily appear on your Experian credit report — they're separate databases — but the same company holds them, and a dispute to one is worth cross-checking against the others.

Where the errors sit

Two places, in my experience. Address history, because Experian keeps more of it, so a prior tenant's mail or a relative's forwarding request has more room to attach. And the "date of first delinquency" on old collections, which is the date that starts the seven-year clock the Fair Credit Reporting Act sets for most negative items. A collector that reports a new date when it buys an old debt — re-aging, it's called. Can keep an item alive past its expiration. Compare the date on Experian to the same account on the other two; the earliest is usually the true one.

How to read it in ten minutes

Personal information first: every name, every address, every employer. Then the accounts, but only three columns: status, balance, and date of first delinquency. Then inquiries from the last twelve months, because those are the ones that still count, and one you don't recognize means someone applied as you.

Pull it free at AnnualCreditReport.com. Not the Experian app, which is a marketing product with a different score on it; the full disclosure.

Next: Equifax, the bureau with an extra free report you're probably not using.