How To Get Your Free Credit Report

You may have seen those late-night ads telling you to visit their website to get a free copy of your credit report. While it's true that you can get a copy of your credit report for free, most of those ads are not entirely honest in what you'll find at their website.

The fact is, most of them are trying to sell you a "credit monitoring" service. The free copy of your credit report is simply a way to get you to visit the site. These credit monitoring services will basically send you alerts if any important financial details changes on your credit report.

These monitoring services can cost anywhere from $12 a month and up, depending on who is offering the service and exactly what is included.

You are legally entitled to receive a free copy of your credit report, however, so don't feel that you are obligated to sign up for one of these services.

There are three major credit reporting agencies - Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. These agencies provide your credit report to any qualified lenders or anyone else who qualifies to receive that information.

The Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACT) is a law that entitles you to receive one free credit file disclosure (aka your credit report) per year from each of the reporting agencies. Under this law, they are obligated to provide this to you free of charge.

How to get credit report information is actually quite straighforward. You can request your free copy of your credit report through the website www.annualcreditreport.com. This website is sponsored by the three major reporting agencies and was set up with the support of the Federal Trade Commission.

It's a good idea to check your credit report annually. Errors do make their way into these reports, in spite of everything being computerized. Things such as credit card debt that was paid off still showing as outstanding, old bank loans still showing as active and other such errors can lower your credit score.

If you do find errors on your report, the credit reporting agencies are obligated to investigate them on your request. If they can't provide proof that the information is accurate, it must be removed from the report.

If you are concerned about keeping a close eye on your credit report throughout the year, by all means sign up for one of the many credit monitoring services. If you simply want to check your FICO credit score reports for errors, however, and don't feel the need to do so on an ongoing basis, don't let yourself get signed up for a monthly subscription that you don't need.

Technorati tags : credit report debt credit