Finance & Loans

Understanding parts of your credit history

Have you looked at your credit report lately? If so, have you paid attention to the “status” column for each line of credit item reported or shown on your report? All three major credit reporting agencies, Equifax, TransUnion and Experian, are using numbers 1 through 9 to indicate the status of each open or closed credit lines. These numeric assignments are based on lender reporting. What do they mean?

Under the best scenario you should have 1 under the status column for each credit line to indicate that you are paying or paid off each credit line “as agreed.” Any other number should be considered as bad news. Number 2 is used to indicate one to 30 day past due payments on your credit line, number 3 is for 31 to 60 days past due and number 4 is to indicate 61 to 90 days past due. Number 5 indicates an instance where a debt has been referred for collection. Number 7 indicates a debt settled by a bankruptcy or another non-profit organization while number 8 is used to indicate repossession. When an account is charged off, number 9 is used to indicate it. Number 6 is unused at this time.