Credit Reports

Soft inquiry created when an existing creditor reviews a current account instead of processing a brand-new application.

Account status means the label or condition describing how a credit account is currently being reported.

Authorized user means someone allowed to use another person's credit-card account without being the primary account holder.

Average age of accounts means the typical age of the accounts on a credit file when viewed together.

Closed account means a credit account that is no longer open for new use even though it may still appear on the credit report.

Collection account means a debt that has been sent or sold to collections and is now being reported in that status.

Copy of a consumer's own reported information provided by a reporting agency for review, monitoring, and dispute purposes.

Reporting file covered by consumer-reporting law, including credit reports and some other decision-use records.

Consumer statement means a short note a consumer may add to a credit file to explain a disputed, unusual, or contextual situation.

Credit bureau means a company that gathers, maintains, and distributes consumer credit-file information.

Record a credit bureau maintains about a consumer's reported accounts, inquiries, and negative items.

Record showing that someone accessed a consumer's credit file, with meaning that depends on the type of review.

Credit monitoring means ongoing observation of a consumer's credit-file activity for changes, alerts, or suspicious events.

File of accounts, inquiries, payment history, and negative items used in lending and scoring decisions.

Credit-report terms that explain bureaus, tradelines, inquiries, and the records that shape a consumer credit file.

Days past due means the measure of how long a required payment has remained unpaid after the due date.

Derogatory mark means negative credit-file information that suggests elevated repayment risk or account trouble.

Direct dispute means a challenge sent to the furnisher of credit information rather than only to the credit bureau.

Dispute means a challenge to credit-report information that the consumer believes is inaccurate, incomplete, or not properly attributed.

Dispute letter means a written notice used to challenge credit-report information the consumer believes is inaccurate or incomplete.

Outcome of a credit-report dispute showing whether challenged information was changed, removed, or left as reported.

Job-related detail shown in or associated with a credit file, useful for identification context but not the same as tradeline data.

Date when the delinquency that led to serious negative reporting first began, important for aging certain report items.

No-cost access to a consumer's credit-report information through eligible channels provided under reporting rules.

Furnisher means a company or organization that supplies consumer credit information to a credit bureau.

Hard inquiry means a credit-file check tied to a credit application or another decision that can involve new borrowing risk.

Identity verification means the process of confirming that the person requesting credit or file access is who they claim to be.

Date showing when information about an account or item was most recently updated with the reporting agency.

Mixed credit file means a credit file that contains information belonging partly to another person.

Reporting life of certain negative credit items before they should age off a consumer report under reporting rules.

Reporting label indicating an account was repaid according to its terms rather than through default or collection trouble.

Collection account that has been paid or resolved but may still appear on the credit report as a collection item.

Permissible purpose means a legally valid reason for a company or institution to access a consumer credit report.

Identity details on a credit report such as name, address, and similar file-matching information.

Prescreen opt-out means choosing not to receive many prescreened credit or insurance offers based on softer file-review screening.

Prescreened offer means a credit or card offer sent after a softer preselection process rather than a full application approval review.

Soft inquiry tied to prescreening or offer selection instead of a completed application for new credit.

Public record means a court or government record item that may be associated with a consumer's credit-reporting history.

Reinvestigation means the bureau's review of disputed credit-report information to determine whether it should stay, change, or be removed.

Inaccurate, incomplete, or wrongly attributed information appearing on a credit report.

Serious delinquency means an account is far enough behind that lenders and bureaus treat it as a major repayment failure risk.

Soft inquiry means a credit-file review that is not treated like a full new-credit application pull.

Consumer reporting company that focuses on a narrower data category than the big credit bureaus, such as tenant, employment, or check-writing history.

Specialty consumer report used in rental decisions, often combining rental-history, credit, and background information.

Tradeline means an individual account entry on a Credit Report.

Unauthorized account means a credit account appearing on the report that the consumer did not open or approve.

Unauthorized inquiry means a credit-report inquiry the consumer does not recognize or did not permit.