You will need to get your full credit report from all three of the credit bureaus. Your full credit report will list the name and address or phone number of the lender who issued the credit card or bank account. Contact the lender and discuss the issue with him personally. You may find that the account is not on all three of your credit reports. In that case, it could be a mistake by one of the bureaus. If it is on all three of your credit reports. Then you may be the victim of identity theft, or you may have an account open that you forgot about. Sometimes the bank information on the credit report is abbreviated or not clear – for example, I have a Goodyear credit card for auto service but it is listed as a Citibank card because Citibank handles the cards for Goodyear.
You can get one credit report from each bureau once per year for free from the website www.annualcreditreport.com. You can get one credit report from each bureau once per year for free from the website www.annualcreditreport.com. You can also get credit reports directly from the credit bureaus by registering for accounts on their websites. However, they will try to get you to upgrade to a paid service for full access.
You can also lock or freeze your credit reports at all three bureaus which will prevent anyone from checking your credit or opening a new account in your name. You must be careful when doing this, because if you want to apply for credit you will have to remember to unlock or unfreeze your reports first. Otherwise the credit will be denied because the bank will not be able to get your credit file.
