Just because you settled with a car loan company after a car repossession, that doesn’t mean that they have to remove it from your Equifax, Experian or TransUnion reports.

The three credit reporting bureaus deal with a substantial amount of information daily. As a result, mistakes can occur on your credit report. By requesting and reviewing the free annual credit reports from each of the credit reporting bureaus, you can be on the lookout for errors that may exist on your report.

The information in your credit report determines in large part what kind of credit, from car loans to credit cards to mortgages, you’ll be able to get. Federal law gives you the right to know what consumer credit information is collected on you and you need to exercise that right.

Anyone who has recently applied for a mortgage knows that lenders are already looking much more closely at your financial affairs. But soon, they’ll be able to easily delve into the deepest recesses of your financial life, accessing information that never before appeared on your credit report.

A FICO Score is a brand of credit score — FICO stands for Fair Isaac Corporation and Fair Isaac is the company that developed the software program used by the credit bureaus to compile and calculate credit scores for U.S. consumers.