Free Credit Reports Online
"I've heard some people say that I can get a free credit report online, but the websites I looked at want to charge me a fee. Is it true that I can get a free credit report once a year?" |
What's the deal on free credit reports?
Yes, Virginia, there is a free credit report clause. Back in December 2003, the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACT Act) was signed into law, which gives every U.S. consumer the right to receive a copy of their credit report free of charge once a year.
The free credit report access was rolled out from the west coast to the east coast, and as of September 1, 2005 every United States citizen has been able to obtain a free credit report once every 12 months.
A credit report provides you with all of the information in your credit file maintained by consumer reporting companies that could be provided by them in a consumer report about you to a third party, such as a lender. This information includes mortgage, credit card and loan balances, along with your payment history. A credit report also includes a record of everyone who has received a consumer report about you within a certain period of time.
You can request your free credit report through the website shown below, by phone or by mail. If you request your annual credit report by phone or mail, it will be mailed within 15 days. However, you can receive a report immediately online. Click on this link to find information on how to request a free annual credit report online, by phone or mail.
And here's a practical tip that was pointed out by several readers: Consumers are actually entitled to get one free report a year -- from each of the 3 credit bureaus. So you can can actually get three reports per year. If you request your credit report from a different credit bureau every 4 months, you can monitor them more closely, rather than just once a year.
Singing, Dancing and Acting
AnnualCreditReport.com was created by the three nationwide consumer credit reporting companies - Equifax, Experian and TransUnion, in accordance with the FACT Act, to provide consumers with the ability to get a free credit report once every 12 months. It's the ONLY service authorized by the credit bureaus for this purpose.
So don't confuse this with other "free credit report" offers that are advertised on radio, TV or online. I'm not saying those companies are pulling a scam, but they DO want to sell you additional services, such as credit monitoring, or identity theft protection. They won't tell you that you can get those credit reports absolutely free, with no strings attached.
And if you're not careful about reading the fine print, you can learn later that you're on the hook for monthly charges you didn't expect. See this NY Times article on The High Cost of a 'Free Credit Report' for more on that.
Credit Report vs. Credit Score
Don't confuse your credit report with your credit score. A credit score (sometimes called a FICO score) is simply a number ranging from 375 to 900, which is derived from the many types of information in a credit file. A credit score is used by a lender to help determine whether a person qualifies for a particular credit card, loan, or service.
Most credit scores estimate the risk a company incurs by lending a person money or providing them with a service –– specifically, the likelihood that the person will make payments on time in the next two to three years. Generally, the higher the score, the less risk the person represents.
Your credit score may be negatively affected if:
Only time, and avoiding the things in the list above, will cause your credit score to increase. Although you are entitled to one free credit report each year, you will probably have to pay a modest fee to obtain your credit score. Some banks and credit card companies provide this service for free, so check with your financial institutions before you pay someone else to see your credit score.
Read the Federal Trade Commission report on How Credit Score is Calculated to better understand the factors that go into determining your credit score.
Got something to say on the topic of free credit reports or related issues? Post your comment below...
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Posted by Bob Rankin on 12 May 2009
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Article information: AskBobRankin -- Free Credit Reports Online (Posted: 12 May 2009)
Source: http://askbobrankin.com/free_credit_reports_online.html
Copyright © 2005 - Bob Rankin - All Rights Reserved
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Most recent comments on "Free Credit Reports Online"
(See all 26 comments for this article.)Posted by:
StevieF
26 Dec 2009
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?
Posted by:
Chuck Cronan
13 Jan 2010
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.
Posted by:
T Chandler
10 Feb 2010
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!
Posted by:
wiliamfleming
29 Mar 2010
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.
Posted by:
Joe Hathaway
13 Jul 2010
If you are married and do all or most of your financial business jointly, you can actually get SIX reports free each year, and catch errors that much faster. Each person, man and wife, can get a report separately, from each of three agencies (and they are very much alike). Thus, him-January, her-March, him-May, her-July, him-September, her-November = six reports per year.
Posted by:
David
13 Oct 2010
From http://consumer.georgia.gov/00/press/detail/0,2668,5426814_94800056_94832352,00.html
"Georgia is among several states that allow consumers to request an additional two free credit reports per year from the three credit reporting agencies. These requests, however, need to be made directly to the credit bureaus themselves."
Posted by:
Rob
01 Nov 2010
Years ago I was able to purchase a terrific service from one of the major credit reporting agencies (I don't recall which one.) All it did was notify me by email each time a credit inquiry had been made and what type of inquiry it was (i.e, whether I had applied for new credit or if it was just an inquiry from an existing creditor or from some company planning to offer me credit.) The service only cost $10/year and I felt was well worth it (although I believe the Feds should require it be done for free for all consumers.) Anyway, after a few years they seemed to have dropped this service. I guess it competed with the more expensive credit monitoring services they were offering at $10 to $12 per month, an amount I am reluctant to pay for info which should be free. Does anyone know anything more about this?
Posted by:
TheRube
03 Nov 2010
I went to the www.creditkarma.com website out of curiosity as I have already received my free credit report from the Annual Credit Report website.
Moving right along, I went to www.creditkarma.com and the site looks credible (even has better business approval) - - HOWEVER, the signup page where you submit your personal information was N-O-T secure the first time I went in (according to my Firefox browser, So Beware!!!)
The second time I went into signup (within a span of 10 minutes) The page was Highly encrypted!
So I don't know what gives here.
The encryption is apparently inconsistent.
In any case - - just Beware of this website.
Posted by:
feyda
11 Mar 2011
It's so trendy now in bank service - offer your an option to send your card information for your phone)
Posted by:
Chris
23 Oct 2011
My mom was 'scammed' by one of those "TV" credit report companies. The one that is most often seen on TV. With the singing and dancing. There was a monthly bill from them on mom's bank statement. She had never signed up for them. Still have no idea how they got her credit card information. They had called her home once, and she didn't pick up. It went to voicemail. So, no credit card number that way. I don't understand how the company could still be in business just by changing names. They got sued before for fraud, by advertising their service as free when it wasn't.