It's no secret that your credit report  information about where you work, live and if you pay your bills on time (or not). It also may show whether you've been sued, arrested or have filed for bankruptcy with in the last 10 years. Companies called Consumer Reporting Agencies (CRA) or Credit Bureaus compile and sell your credit report to businesses all over the world.

Many financial advisors indicate that you should review periodically your credit report for inaccuracies or omissions. This could be particularly important if you're debating about making a major purchase, like buying a home. Checking in advance on the accuracy of information in your credit file could speed the credit-granting process, having a clean credit is a must. It's important that the information in your report is complete and accurate.

A credit report is pulled from at least one of the three major credit bureaus everytime you apply for any type of credit or financing. This is the reason why you will want a clean credit report to be pulled.

Getting Your Clean Credit Report

If by any chance you've been denied credit, insurance, or employment because of the data supplied by a credit reporting agency, the FCRA says the company you applied to must give you the agency`s name, address, and telephone number. In this case, if you get in touch with the agency for a copy of your report within 60 days of receiving a denial notice, the report is free. In addition, you're entitled to one free copy of your anual report.

If you simply want a copy of your report, call each of the three credit bureau listed since it is possible that more than one agency has a file on you, some with different information. The three major national credit bureaus are: Equifax, Experian (formerly TRW) and Trans Union.

Correcting Errors For Clean Credit.

In order to protect all your rights under the law and to keep your credit clean you need to contact both the CRA and the information provider.

To get clean credit reports,tell the credit reporting agency in writing what information you might think is inaccurate. Add copies of the documents that confirm your statement and keep the originals. It is also very important to give your complete name and address and to clearly highlight each item in your report you dispute, explain why you dispute the information, and ask for deletion or correction.

They must reinvestigate the items in question, usually within 30 days, unless they consider your dispute frivolous. They also must forward all relevant data you provide about the dispute to the information provider. After the information provider receives notice of a dispute from the CRA, it must investigate, review all relevant information provided by the CRA, and report the results to the CRA. If the information provider finds the disputed information to be inaccurate, it must notify all nationwide CRAs so they can correct this information in your file. Disputed information that cannot be verified must be deleted from your file, then you will receive a clean credit report, with that item removed.

At the end of the reinvestigation, they must give you the written results and a free copy of your clean credit report, only if the dispute results in a change.

Clean Credit: Here are the exceptions:

There is no time limit when reporting credit information in response to an application for a job with a salary of more than $75,000, when reporting credit information because of an application for more than $150,000 worth of credit or life insurance and last but not least, there is no time limti when reporting information about criminal convictions.

Bankruptcy information may be reported for 10 years and information about a lawsuit or an unpaid judgment against you can be reported for seven years or until the statute of limitations runs out, whichever is longer.

For more information about cleaning up your credit report visit free credit report.