When is the last time you checked your credit report? The information it contains may matter more than ever in this digital age, and 60 Minutes correspondent Steve Kroft looked into an alarming number of mistakes on the reports that can affect a consumer’s entire financial life.

Find out how to make credit report disputes to the three major agencies. 60 Minutes: Experian Vs Transunion Vs Equifax „A mistake on your credit report can cost you money,“ Kroft noted, citing loan interest rates, car financing, mortgages, and even job searches or security clearances.

Instead, bite the bullet and pay as much as you can each month. If your minimum payment is $100, double that to $200 or more. Examine your normal expenses — you can find the money. (For a gazillion ideas, check out our Living Below Your Means discussion board.) Skip eating out at lunch, and bring it from home instead. Eliminate desserts. Give up happy hour. We all have „luxuries,“ and you know what yours are.

60 Minutes: 2013 FTC Credit Reporting Study 60 Minutes investigated the stunning number of errors on consumer credit reports and how to make credit report disputes to Equifax, Transunion, and Experian. This information is sold to everyone from employers to insurance companies and creditors.

2. Snowball your debt payments Take a long, hard look at all your credit cards. Pay particular attention to the one with the lowest interest rate. Have you reached the maximum limit on that card? If not, consider transferring a higher-interest bill to that one. Many credit cards for bad credit even permit this, and it’s positively Foolish to trade an 18% debt for one at 12%.

If your entire balance is too large to fit on one low-interest card, pay at least the minimum amounts due on all of your cards except one. Funnel the majority of your debt repayments into that one credit card, and pay it off as quickly as possible. When the balance on that card reaches zero, move on to the next with the same aggressive repayment plan. Lather, rinse, and repeat. This method of repayment is aptly called „snowballing.“ As your debts decrease, the amount of money you have to attack them increases. Your payments snowball until all of your debt is pummeled. Pretty neat, eh?

You gain the advantage of the identity theft protection that goes side by side with a credit monitoring service. The proper measures can be apportioned here by both you and your credit monitoring agency to terminate the identity theft in its infantile stages. For the criminal parasites that might try and attach themselves to your healthy credit report; they will exposed by the unauthorized user updates that you receive. Again, this leverages you to properly and effectively stop the crime before it gets out of hand. Lastly, there is the overall sense of well-being that goes along with knowing that there is a professional out there that’s got your back in terms of you and your family’s financial well-being.

60 Minutes: Credit Report Customer Service About eight million consumers file disputes every year, visiting the credit reporting websites to begin the process, if they can first navigate sales pitches for financial products offered by the companies. Steve Kroft called a customer service number and got a call center in India, where he was not given much help after a 15-minute phone call to a toll-free number. What about that post office box number? According to Kroft, „it’s extremely unlikely that anyone with the authority to resolve your dispute will ever actually see it.“

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