Free Instant Credit Reports – Score

Ken Marlborough asked:




Checking your credit report is an efficient tool in battling identity theft. You can order a free credit report once every twelve months from any of the nationwide consumer credit reporting companies.

All the information available regarding your credit history like your address, transaction profile and any government offenses are listed in the credit report. Consumer companies nationwide sell your credit report to creditors, insurance companies, possible recruitment agencies and other businesses that need to assess your request for, employment, insurance, credit, or renting. That’s why it is helpful to make sure the information on your report is accurate, complete and up-to-date before you apply for a loan.

You can visit a credit report site to get your free report online. Sites can also offer a toll-free number to order their free annual credit reports, or you can download a form and send it to their website.

Consumers can order all three reports at the same time, or they can stagger their requests over a period of a year. Consumers are eligible to order a free credit report any time. They are not required to submit their request within a certain period of time.

Banks will remind you if they are giving you credit at a higher interest based on your credit score and warn you if they have divulged any negative information about you in other credit agencies.

Scrutinizing your own credit report once a year should be a habit that you do frequently, especially with the rise of identity theft related crimes. Be aware of other sites that claim to provide free credit reports and any e-mails that claim to be from a consumer reporting agency. Seeing if it’s free has its own warning sign, so keep this in mind as numerous fraud schemes pop up.

Elizabeth

Christopher Wright asked:




Since late 2004 and early 2005, the three nationwide consumer reporting companies – Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion – began processing consumers’ requests for free annual credit reports at annualcreditreport(.com).

A credit report contains consumers’ identification information; payment history with different creditors; a list of inquiries made by various financial institutions; and information on the public record, such as foreclosures or bankruptcies. Consumer reporting companies collect and sell this information to lenders and other businesses that have a permissible purpose to obtain it.

The FTC has issued a new consumer education brochure, “Your Access to Free Credit Reports,” that explains why it is important for consumers to monitor their credit history, how to request a report, and how to dispute any errors. The report can be found by searching the FTC’s site for that title.

Keep in mind the source of this information. You can be sure that (when reading this) there won’t be any secrets techniques exposed that would give you an advantage over the bureaus during your credit restoration process. Learning some of these insider tactics requires a different thought process.

By law you are also entitled to receive a free copy of your credit report if you have been denied or turned down for credit. The company you applied for credit through must provide you with the name and contact information of the credit bureau they obtained your information from. You can then contact this credit bureau within 60 days using the information provided to obtain your free credit report. You may be able to fax a copy of your denial letter and get access to your credit files quicker than sending them via snail mail.

Franklin

Harry J. Andersohn asked:




Ever since consumers started to be aware of their credit score and how it affects everything from your ability to get a loan for a house, to rent an apartment, to buy a car and even to get insurance for that car, the number of sites that are claiming to offer free instant credit reports has been on the rise. But now here’s the issue – many of these sites that say they offer free credit reports really only do that as a front to get you hooked on a list that will allow them to spam you for years with all sorts of offers that you didn’t really agree to accept.

So when you’re looking for truly free credit reports, and you don’t want to wait weeks for them to arrive in the mail, you need to find a site that is legitimate, trustworthy, and can deliver on its promise to instantly show you your report and the score that lenders are using to evaluate your credit worthiness.

Here are some things to look out for…

Is the company behind the free credit report site trustworthy? Admittedly this can be a little bit difficult to evaluate on your own. Still, you should recognize a fly-by-night operation from one that has been established for a long time and that has a long list of satisfied clients.

Look for names you know, and look to see how long they’ve been in business as well as how many customers they’ve served. The best sites will be able to point to thousands of happy customers and several years in business. This can be a good indication of a site that delivers on its promise.

What are the hidden fees? Most sites that offer free credit reports will do so as part of a bundle or package that includes some kind of credit monitoring service. This is fine, and can actually be quite helpful. But what you need to make sure is that if you don’t want this monitoring service that you’ll be able to cancel it before you’re ever charged.

Again, the simple fact that the site offering a free instant credit report also puts you in to a trial for a credit monitoring service shouldn’t automatically disqualify it. As long as you’re offered a grace period during which you can cancel and not pay, this should be fine.

Is the information accurate? Now I’m not talking here about whether or not the information on your credit report is accurate. What I mean is, is the credit report coming from a reputable agency? It does you no good to go with a service that offers an “estimate” of your credit score when it’s not coming from an actual credit reporting agency.

What you need is the information that actual lenders are going to be using when evaluating whether or not they can extend credit. For this, you should be going with a brand name service – one that will offer you a true picture of how lenders see you and your ability to borrow money.

Gladys

Gary Gresham asked:




Every consumer in America has the right to a free credit report once every year by law as of September 2005. But since that law has passed there has been nothing but confusion.

The web sites that say they are offering this so called free credit report, are asking us to give them our credit card information. Does that sound like a free credit report to you?

You may have even given your credit card number to these companies to sign up for a thirty day trial for a credit service that has almost nothing to do with getting your free credit report.

In all fairness, you can cancel this service after thirty days. But how many people do you think forget and end up with monthly or even annual credit card charges?

In fact, these companies are counting on you forgetting about the thirty day trial and charging that fee on your credit card. But if the law says you get a free report, what’s the deal?

A lot of people are confused about these free credit reports because of how some companies are marketing the free credit report. Hopefully, this information will clear a few things up for you.

For people who just want the bottom line, a free credit report is available at http://www.AnnualCreditReport.com and this is the only official site that helps consumers to obtain their annual free credit report.

This site’s security protocols are excellent with physical and technological security and encryption. That’s important for identity theft purposes because the information on your credit report should be seen by your eyes only.

So if this site is readily available and anyone can get a free credit report once a year, what’s the catch? Here is the catch: the credit report you get from http://www.AnnualCreditReport.com does not have any credit scores.

Now you may be asking, “Then what good is getting this free credit report without a credit score?” There are a few good reasons why you may want to look at your credit report even without a credit score.

Did you know that more than forty percent of all credit reports have errors? If you spot these errors, you can get them cleared up before it affects your credit score. If you contact a credit bureau about an error, they have to clear it up or remove it after thirty days by law.

If you monitor and review your credit report, you can check to be sure that you are not a victim of identity theft. If someone takes over your accounts and charges up thousands of dollars in debt, they can destroy your credit score in a matter of hours.

These are just a couple of good reasons why you want to get your free credit report once a year and inspect it just to be sure everything looks like it should. You can get your free credit report online at http://www.AnnualCreditReport.com or by phone or through the mail.

So where do you get your credit score from? This is where the confusion comes in and here is the answer. The law Congress passed did not say anything about a credit score just one free credit report a year per consumer.

You have to pay a service to get your credit score and some companies are confusing people with the way they are marketing this. They offer you a free credit report and score and many consumers believe it’s their annual free credit report.

But if you have to sign up for a credit service they offer for a 30 day trial period, does that sound free? What these companies are counting on is you forgetting about the 30 day trial and charging a fee on your credit card once that trial period is over.

It’s in the fine print, but how many people actually read that. So here is a good common sense rule of thumb. Any time you have to give your credit card information, ask yourself, “is this really free?”

Many of you probably know this is happening because you have been trapped with this kind of marketing tactic. But for those of you that just want your annual free credit report, you can at least be aware as to what is really going on and have a no nonsense way to get it.

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