Who hasn’t heard those catchy TV jingles telling about all the problems that could have been solved with a free credit report? In a way it is true. If you regularly get free instant credit reports online you can save yourself some trouble. However, free credit reports are not just for problems. All informed consumers should get one on a regular basis to check for possible errors. Just make sure what you are getting truly is free!
The site with the catchy jingle does offer free instant credit reports, but only with the purchase of a subscription to a credit monitoring surface. Oh, you knew it was too good to be true, didn’t you? Well, it isn’t! There is a site that offers truly free credit reports with no strings attached. Http://www.annualcreditreport.com offers you a free report from the top three credit bureaus. You can access a report from each bureau once each year. This was recently enacted by the federal government and it is now up and running for all 50 states. If you use this site you will not be required to buy anything.
When you first get to the website you will get to choose which bureau report you want. One of the best ways to utilize this site is to get one report every four months. All of the credit bureaus report information to each other, so all of the reports should contain the same information. By getting one every four months, you can get free instant credit reports online all year long!
To get your free report you simply go to the site and enter your information. You will need your full name, address, and social security number. You may be required to answer a few questions that are taken directly from your credit history and should be easy to answer. They may ask something like, “Which company is your vehicle financed through?” The answers are multiple choice. Once you get your report, you can save or print it. You may also choose to buy a credit score report while you are there, but that is optional. The credit score report will tell you which things are positively or negatively influencing your score, so it may be worth the price. Look over your report carefully. If you find accounts that you did not open, you may have been the victim of identity theft. In this case you should contact the credit bureau immediately. If you find information about your accounts that is incorrect you can contact the credit bureau for information on how to get it corrected.
Getting a copy of your free instant credit report is a good way to fight bad credit. You can look to see if you may have been a victim of identity theft, or if a company is reporting something falsely on your report. Getting this information can help you improve your credit if the information on the report is incorrect. So, the little ditty you hear on TV is right, you can prevent problems by getting a copy of your credit report, but you don’t need to wait for trouble to get one!