Monday, April 5, 2010

free credit report annually from experian, transunion, and equifax

If your in the market for anything that requires credit, whether you've had credit in the past or not. One of the first things you need to be aware of is your credit report. You can go to the website that is advertised on TV with the catchy little jingle and sign right up. But you can go get exactly the same thing at https://www.annualcreditreport.com/cra/order and then fill in the appropriate information and choose 1, 2 or all three of your reports for free. This central site allows you to request a free credit file disclosure (https://www.annualcreditreport.com/cra/order), commonly called a credit report, once every 12 months from each of the nationwide consumer credit reporting companies: Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. It is sponsored by the 3 respective companies. You can also call them and they will send you a hard paper copy by snail mail. What's great about the fact that you can get it for free, well the price is right. Other than that you can see if a bill you knew you had shows appropriate, such as it's paid off or current or has paid as promised showing on each of your bills. When you get a hard copy or a downloaded copy you can learn so much from inspecting your own credit report. Either way you can see if it's exactly correct or not. The only other thing that is of importance is what the score is. This is not typically a free bit of information. How unfair is that? It's something we either have to pay for or have someone disclose that information when they aren't suppose to. I personally don't think it's fair but I didn't make the rule or system. What's worse is the lower your score the higher the price you will pay for any credit you would qualify for. So why would you have a low score? You don't make much, or don't pay well. Either way you are going to pay more when your either in a lower income bracket or have more debt than you should, compared to your income. Either way I haven't figured out why it's so fair for them (lenders) to charge more because you don't have any credit at first. Or when you have less to pay with. If you have more debt than you should I understand that. But bottom line I guess you have this report to keep working for you or against you. It's up to you to make yourself aware of how it can be best kept working to your advantage. I recommend you take 1 each 4 months give or take. This way you can see if they are reporting accurate for you. You can dispute anything that isn't correct. I highly recommend you do. Either way getting your report for free is a great beginning and I highly recommend it. If you get on over there let me know how easy it is for you. It was genuinely easy enough for me. Don't bother doing it online if you don't want to put in your social security number call them on the phone. I did it online. I also recommend that if you want more than one open a link in a new window. Or you can page back til you get to the list again. God Blesses! Sandy