Curious About Your Credit Report? Get it for Free
Photo by Alec Peden.If you are curious about your credit report like I was, you’re probably thinking about your options for finding out about it. Apart from a major purchase like a house or car, there aren’t many opportunities to just look it up. Enter sites like AnnualCreditReport.com, Credit.com and FreeCreditReport.com. If you search for “free credit report” on Google, about 23 million results pop up. Everyone wants to give you your report… the trick is, you just have to ask.
To give you some back info into how obtaining credit works: everyone’s credit history is tracked and rated by three national credit reporting companies; Experian, Equifax and TransUnion (sounds like a railroad company right?). A law signed in 2003 called the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACT Act) allows consumers to get one free comprehensive disclosure of all credit history from each of the three national credit reporting companies once every year. AnnualCreditReport.com is the central source by which you can get your free report.
Five minutes of filling out a couple forms will get you access to your credit reports from the three credit reporting companies, but AnnualCreditReport.com does not give out your credit score (that 3-digit magical number), just the reports. Once you’re in, it’s a good idea to print these reports to study for mistakes or just to save for your records.
FreeCreditReport.com is a monthly service that It is a leading provider of online consumer credit reports, credit scores, credit monitoring, and other credit-related information. To get a your free Experian Credit Report, you must sign up for a free trial of Triple AdvantageSM Credit Monitoring. Signing up takes about 3 minutes and a valid credit card number, so it’s pretty convenient. Just make sure to cancel later if you don’t want to continue the monthly service.
In addition to the free credit report (from Experian only) you also get the following in your monthly subscription:
Your Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion credit reports are monitored daily to see if key information has changed or if new data has been added. You will receive a monitoring alert if essential information has changed on your report. That way, you can identify fraudulent activity early in cases where credit activity is unfamiliar or unauthorized.
Unlike AnnualCreditReport.com, FreeCreditReport.com will provide you with your credit score, but only from Experian. Mine? 696. “Fair” is the term they use. The number can range from 330 on the low end to 830 if you are a master of credit.
If you’re curious about what your credit report says, don’t wonder anymore. I recommend going with AnnualCreditReport.com. But remember, as the name says, you can only view it once a year, so use it wisely.
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You have the right to see your credit report. No one else can have access to the information in your report unless you allow it.
Usually, when you sign documents such as a loan or a credit card application, you are allowing the organization that is giving you credit to check your credit history. Credit-reporting agencies will only give information from your credit report to someone else when you have given permission, and when the request is related to credit, collection of a debt, rental of a house or an apartment, or an application for employment or insurance.