Credit Report – Check Yourself Save $1,000’s on Interest.

Booyakasha! Check Yourself Fool

When was the last time you did a credit check on yourself? We all know that our credit report is a really important tool in our financial toolbox. We want to make sure that tool is nice and clean. So when you or the service that needs to use it, finds no surprises. I found a big surprise, this is how I fixed it.

2 years ago we sold our townhouse and forwarded that mortgage over to our new bigger house. It was all done with the same mortgage provider. I thought it was/ or would of been a easy process. We dealt with our lawyer and the financial Corporation. All we had to do was get a new larger mortgage amount, sell the other house, put most of the equity we had onto the new mortgage and cross the T’s and dot the I’s.

Our Credit Report Surprise

Everything was signed and since we were dealing with the same company there shouldn’t of been any issues…. The transition went smooth and we carried on with life in the new house. Well last year we decided to move our mortgage over to rbc and refinance, pulling out some equity for investing. During the process, they ran a credit check on us.

Boom what’s this? Your credit is still showing you owe $220,000 to x (the old company we dealt with) she mentioned. WTF! RBC stated they could see it was closed and not hurting the credit but it’s something we should figure out and close. Maybe with all the work transferring the mortgage, company x would see the old mortgage and cancel it.

At the time we were also transferring all our mutual funds over to a direct investing account. This was a long process, which drove me nuts. I focused most of my spare time on this at the time. Any how I didn’t do nothing about the credit check and started focusing on the solar panels.

I don’t know about you but I tend to focus on one thing and once its done I can focus on the next project. Well the solar panels finally got finalized. While logged into rbc’s website the other day, I noticed you can check your credit report. Click the link agree to the terms and BAM there it is. Yes its actually that easy! Shortly after looking it over there was that remaining $220,000 sitting there owed to the old mortgage lender! It was time to get that out of there. One of things on my 2018 Game Plan.

Simple Fix

The next day, I called the lender and got some women who didn’t really seem to know what she was doing. She blamed the lawyer not closing the account. I have dealt with our lawyer a couple times and was doubtful it was on their end but called them anyways. Instantly they said its definitely on the lenders end, all the paperwork is legal and we were off the title (which was one of my biggest concerns) they would look into it though.

Here we go, time to call the original lender again. This time I got a women who felt bad and definitely was smarter. She told me to take a pic of the credit report with the part that shows them and the balance and email customer complaints and they will remove it within the week. Great, simple as that.

A hour later the lawyer calls me, they checked again and all the paperwork is good on their end. I mentioned how I called the lender and got someone smart who told me to forward a picture to them and they would remove it. As much as the lawyer liked to hear that, they said they were going to call the lender and sort it out asap anyways. Now I Knew it was going to be eliminated fast, I had the lawyer on my side harassing them to remove it. For Free!

Bonus Money!

That was that, I was going to check in a week and see if it was removed. 2 days later though the phone rings and its the lawyer. They state everything has now been settled and its off your credit score. We are also going to send you a cheque for $70 for the error. I seriously don’t know what happened, but hey 70 bucks! Its now off and gone. It’s always nice to have a lawyer on your side!

A Lower Credit Score

During the process of course I checked the wife’s credit score to see if it was there as well figuring it was. Of course it was but has been cleared now too! One thing I noticed though was how much lower her credit score was getting.

After getting completely debt free we cancelled all credit card’s but a rbc cash back card. It’s in my name with her on it. This is purely to make stuff simple, since I deal with the finance. (I encourage everyone to have both partners active in the finances but my wife basically refuses….. I keep her updated on everything though) Anyways I thought having the one card with her name on it would be the same as her having her own card. Her credit score shows her not having one card. This will get fixed soon, either by figuring out a way to restructure our current card or signing her up for another card.

Before this the last time I did a credit check on the both of us was 3 years ago, clearly a lot changed since then. I wanted to check ours to see if that balance was removed and to also just make sure we weren’t a victim of identity theft. Checking our report was a great thing to do, as it will fix 2 problems and ensure a better score in the future. Its free and easy with rbc banking and maybe other financial institutions as well. Equifax, Transunion and Experian all offer a free credit report once a year from what I recall on their websites.

Conclusion

I hope my experience, will encourage you to check out your credit report. With the data breach of Equifax in 2017, the rise of identity theft and just general errors, its a good thing to do. While you may not need a good credit score now, things could change. Do whatever you can to keep that report squeaky clean!

Save your money on interest and put that money into solid dividend paying companies. Get Paid while you sleep!

Have you had any problems with your credit report? When was the last time you checked it?

Cheers!

Rob

Hey I’m Rob, creator of Passive Canadian Income.

In 2011 me and my wife had almost $60,000 in debt and a negative $7,000 Net Worth. Through hard work and financial education we paid all that off. Now we are focusing on increasing our Passive Income Streams to make the money work for us. Feel Free to Follow along the Journey by clicking the Social Media links below or subscribing to get notified of new posts on the sidebar.