Free Credit Reports Online - Comments Page 1

If you care to get a bit compulsive about reviewing your credit reports, you can request one from each of the three main credit reporting agencies every four months, since each is required to provide your credit report at no charge once a year. That way you have a more current view of your credit report.

Also, each will sell you your credit score at the time you request your credit report. As I recall, it's only about six or seven dollars.

You should modify this info on credit reports online. If you are at an IP outside of the USA you will not be able to get it. You must use snail mail. Trying the link above to annualcreditreport.com will only get this message:

"The AnnualCreditReport.com website is only accessible through ISPs (Internet Service Providers) located within the United States and its territories."

Therefore the statement that you are able to get a free credit report online is not true, unless you are using a USA IP.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Not quite... if you're outside the USA, you can use a web proxy. See PeaceFire.org

The only truly free service is AnnualCreditReport.com and Jim Hardy has an excellent suggestion. A free credit score can be found at creditkarma.com.

Bob, I find your stuff very useful but I live in Canada, for my sins, so this article may well not apply here?

EDITOR'S NOTE: No this article pertains to US citizens. Not sure if the Canadian govt does something similar.

The only credit bureau which seems to make it difficult in my case is Equifax. The free report process never gets to the end with them and I never get a report without having to phone and give them additional information.

EDITOR'S NOTE: If you have LifeLock or other "credit protection" service, that could be the reason.

All of the "FREE CREDIT REPORTs ONLINE", are bogus. Each one wanted account Numbers to make a charge.

EDITOR'S NOTE: And that's more or less the point of my article. Use the one I recommended if you want a scam-free experience.

The problem I have is that every time I try to access my "free' credit reports, their system is "down" and I am unable to get them. By the next day, I've moved on to something else and don't remember the "free" site.

I followed your links to the free credit reports and I have received more spam than I can delet. This is the only site I have visited lately. Just thought you should know.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Are you sure you went to AnnualCreditReport.com? In any event, I can assure you there is ZERO connection between the sudden burst of spam and your visit to AskBobRankin.com or the site I recommended (AnnualCreditReport.com).

It's a widely believed MYTH that simply visiting a website can result in a person getting email spam. In fact, it's IMPOSSIBLE for a website owner to acquire your email address simply as a result of you visiting and viewing the pages on a website. The ONLY way for that to happen is if you explicitly enter your email address in a form on that site, and submit the form.

Sorry you got spammed, but it wasn't a by-product of visiting my site, or the credit report site I mentioned.

I have just visited the free credit report link. I tried twice with two different agencies. They both report that I have already received my report within the last year. This is TOTALLY bogus. I have not requested once since I have been in Florida the last two and a half years. They , then ask if I want to purchase a credit report. I have not contacted the third source as yet. Anyone else get the bogus reply?

EDITOR'S NOTE: Sounds like you went to the wrong site. Check your brower history and make sure it was AnnualCreditReport.com -- there are some look-alikes out there.

Another thing to keep in mind is this. If you are denied a loan or credit card application for some reason, you are entitled to a credit report. This report is in addition to the one report a year you are allowed free of charge. So, if for some reason this happens to you and you are denied a credit card, request your free credit report through the credit card company that denied your application.

The Canadian government also states that you are entitled to one free report from each agency.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Good to know. Is there a website for more info?

I clicked on the link in your page, Bob, and everything went fine. Thank you.

Difficulty getting online free credit report from Equifax. What I don't know is now that I filled out the application with all my information where has that gone? Am I signed up or not? Am I getting it by mail? Or do I start all over again with another company?

EDITOR'S NOTE: You should have gotten some kind of confirmation at the end of the process. If you didn't, I would try again, and make sure you go to the OFFICIAL ===> AnnualCreditReport.com Difficulty getting online free credit report from Equifax. What I don't know is now that I filled out the application with all my information where has that gone? Am I signed up or not? Am I getting it by mail? Or do I start all over again with another company?

EDITOR'S NOTE: You should have gotten some kind of confirmation at the end of the process. If you didn't, I would try again, and make sure you go to the OFFICIAL ===> AnnualCreditReport.com

The listed AnnualCreditReport.com site is decent, and free if one does not wish the credit numbers. At a recent seminar I was told that company specific (Equifax, Experian, etc) credit numbers are ignored/back seated to the FICO score. Go to MyFICO.com to get (pay for) this number.

In the end, consider visiting AnnualCreditReport.com for the free reports and MyFICO.com for your FICO score (fee based). Don't bother paying ACR for them.

I love www.creditkarma.com and just wanted to share the site w/all of you. It will give you your credit score free, and it will also show you why your score is as it is and what you can do about it. This information is all free. I go to this site often so I can trend and track my credit score as I work hard to try to raise it, I can see the results of my efforts; again, all for free.

You can also call to get your free annual credit report the telephone number is: 1-877-322-8228

Thank you for the article. I had forgotten the website. It's a nice site as it is free. And even though you have can have access to your report for 30 days it does not update during that time period, however it is nice that you can check the 3 main credit reporting agencies as some information can differ between each agency.

Does anyone know the validity of the above mentioned "creditkarma" website. It would be nice to be able to check my score even if it is once or once in a while without having to have monthly bills adding up but as I am sure they need a decent amount of personal and possibly harmful information I am wondering if this site and it's practices have been checked out?

Actually you can rotate through each credit agency every 4 months. The rule is each agency is free once every 12 months. For example, Jan: Equifax, May: Experian, Sep: TransUnion, Jan: Equifax, etc. But they charge for the credit score. Maybe 5 months will avoid Jan 20 and the following year a Jan 19 request will be rejected.

These three primary credit report companies have us consumers by the balls. Our information is usually wrong but they make it bloody difficult to correct things. This is only more fustrating as they keep trying to sell us services we don't need. Ah!

This is very informative post.I was not aware of free credit report.One of my friend has share some information of it.I have search it and read the most useful information here.This useful information is very much useful for me.I will surly take advantage of this free credit report.Thanks for great help.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Interesting note... this comment originally contained a URL at the end, for nationalcreditreport-com which didn't seem quite right. (I slightly obscured that URL.) So I queried the poster's IP address and it showed he was from Bombay India. So it seems clear that the owners of NationalCreditReport are paying people to post bogus links in forums, in order to game the search engines.