Guide

Credit Report Glossary

Last updated September 10, 2026

Credit reports are written in a vocabulary nobody teaches you. This is what the terms actually mean when you are looking at a real report — plus the Spanish each one usually gets, because most operators learn this language in English and then have to explain it in Spanish.

Where a term is normally left in English even in Spanish conversation, it says so. Translating those tends to confuse rather than help.

Charge-off

Español: cuenta cancelada por incobrable — though operators almost always say charge-off.

An accounting decision by the creditor, not a resolution for the borrower. After roughly 180 days of non-payment the creditor writes the debt off its own books as a loss. The money is still owed. The debt can still be collected, sold, or sued on.

What trips people up: clients see "charged off" and hear "cancelled." It is one of the most damaging entries a report can carry, and if it is accurate it stays. It also frequently appears alongside a separate collection entry for the same debt — see below.

Collection

Español: cuenta en cobranza

A debt passed to a collection agency, either sold outright or assigned for collection. Appears as its own tradeline, separate from the original account.

What trips people up: the same debt legitimately showing twice — once as the original creditor's charge-off, once as the collection agency's entry — is not automatically an error. What is disputable is if both still show a balance owed, since only one party can be owed the money.

Tradeline

Español: normally left as tradeline.

One credit account as it appears on a report — a card, a loan, a mortgage. One line per credit relationship, carrying the creditor, account number, open date, balance, limit, status and payment history.

Furnisher

Español: proveedor de información

Whoever reports data about your client to the bureaus: a bank, a lender, a collection agency. Furnishers have their own accuracy obligations under the FCRA, which is why a dispute sent to the furnisher is a different move from one sent to the bureau.

Date of first delinquency (DOFD)

Español: fecha de la primera morosidad

The date the account first went delinquent and never recovered. It is the single most important date on a negative tradeline, because the seven-year clock runs from the DOFD — not from the charge-off, not from when a collector bought the debt.

What trips people up: this is where re-aging shows up (below). If two bureaus disagree about the DOFD on the same account, at most one is right, and that is a factual question worth putting to the furnisher.

Re-aging

Español: normally left as re-aging.

Resetting the DOFD to a later date, which restarts the seven-year clock and keeps a negative item on the report longer than it should be. Improper re-aging is a genuine, disputable error — and a common one when a debt has passed through several collection agencies.

Hard and soft inquiry

Español: consulta dura / consulta suave

A hard inquiry is a lender checking the file because your client applied for credit. It is visible to others and can affect the score. A soft inquiry — pre-approvals, the client checking their own report, account reviews — is not visible to lenders and does not affect the score.

What trips people up: clients routinely want every inquiry disputed. Only hard inquiries they did not authorize are worth the letter.

Utilization

Español: uso del crédito / utilización

Balance divided by credit limit, on revolving accounts. One of the largest scoring factors, and unusually one of the few things a client can move quickly without disputing anything at all.

Tri-merge

Español: normally left as tri-merge.

A single report pulling all three bureaus — Equifax, Experian and TransUnion — side by side. The standard working document, because the same account frequently appears differently on each. See how to read a credit report.

Metro 2

Español: normally left as Metro 2.

The standard data format furnishers use to report to the bureaus. Worth knowing the name because it comes up constantly in credit repair marketing, often overstated — familiarity with a file format is not by itself a dispute strategy.

Dispute and reinvestigation

Español: disputa / reinvestigación

A dispute asks a bureau to check disputed information with the furnisher. The bureau generally has 30 days under the FCRA to investigate and then correct, delete, or verify the item.

Verified means the furnisher confirmed the information as accurate. That is a real outcome, not a failed letter.

CROA, FCRA, FDCPA

Three different laws that get mixed up constantly:

If you are running an agency, CROA is the one that governs your conduct — what it requires is a longer subject.

CPN

Español: normally left as CPN.

A "credit privacy number" sold as a lawful substitute for a Social Security number so a client can start a clean file. It is not lawful. CROA prohibits advising a consumer to make any statement intended to alter their identification to conceal their credit history, and CPNs are frequently stolen Social Security numbers.

If a course taught this, that is a reason to distrust everything else it taught.