Reading a credit report: part 2
About this video
Sal explains that checking your credit report regularly helps you spot identity theft. Warning signs include personal information or addresses you don't recognise, open accounts you never opened, and hard inquiries for credit you never applied for.
You'll be able to
- explain why it is worth checking my credit report regularly.
- name three warning signs of identity theft on a credit report.
- describe first steps to take if I spot something suspicious.
Key words
- Identity theft
- When someone uses your personal information, such as your name, to borrow money or open accounts as if they were you.
- Hard credit inquiry
- A record that someone applied for credit in your name, for example a credit card application.
- Credit freeze
- A block you can put on your credit so new lenders can't check it, making it harder for someone to open accounts in your name.
Transcript
- [Instructor] So one very important reason to take a look at your credit report fairly regularly is above and beyond to see where you're tracking and how creditors might look at you. It's also to make sure that nothing shady is happening, in particular, things like identity theft.
So where would you actually see that on a credit report? Well, if you look at some of the information here, your personal information, if any of this is inaccurate, especially if the addresses are some other address, that might be evidence that someone is using your identity, but getting the mail sent someplace else and stealing it in some way.
Another point of evidence that something shady might be going on would, of course, be if you had open, active accounts that you weren't aware of, that you didn't do, so you should look for that. And then you could also look for things like hard credit inquiries.
Hard credit inquiries are inquiries where someone is actually applying for credit. So if you look at this and you say, "In November of 2025, I don't even know what Sunrise Bank is and I definitely didn't have a credit card application," that is a huge red flag.
Now, what do you do if you see something like that? You could talk to the credit bureaus. You can do things like freezes on your credit. Those things we cover in more detail in other videos, but it's just another layer to look at when you look at your credit report.
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