Where to Get Your Free Credit Report?

Posted by Sun on December 9, 2008

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So where do you get your free credit report?

You probably have heard a lot of commercials on the radio touting free credit reports for people who are eager to find out their creditworthiness in the eyes of creditors. If you get yours from one of the places like freecreditreport.com, which is a service from Experian, then you are likely getting more than you want. For example, you can indeed get free credit reports from freecreditreport.com, but at the same time you will have to pay for other services you don’t want: The Triple Advantage Credit Monitoring, which will cost you $14.95 per month. In fact, if you are willing to pay, then you can get your *free* report from almost anywhere.

If a free credit report is what you really want, then there’s only one place where you can get it absolutely free: AnnualCreditReport.com.

It has been more than four years since the provisions of New Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACT ACT) allowed everyone to obtain a free credit report from each of the three credit agencies every 12 months. So, by law, you don’t have to pay to get your free report.

AnnualCreditReport.com, sponsored by Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion, is the only authorized site that can provide consumers free credit reports from all three credit reporting agencies. It was created after the amendment to the FACT ACT was passed four years ago. To maker sure you don’t go to any other bogus sites for your reports, you can access AnnualCreditReport.com directly from the Federal Trade Commission website at http://www.ftc.gov/freereports.

To begin the process of getting your free credit report, you will first select the state you are living in, then provide your personal information. The next step is to choose from which agency to get your report. You may also need to create an account with the company in order to do that. There is, however, a strict requirement on the. If you request your report from, say Experian, December 10, 2007, you have to wait exactly 12 months for your next one. If you attempt to request one again from Experian today, December 9, 2008, then you will be denied. So wait for exactly one year.

Since everybody is eligible for a free report from each of the three companies, you can get three reports in any 12-month period. Here’s what I do to use these reports more efficiently: Instead of getting all three at once, I request one every four months. It’s not as good as a monthly monitoring service, but I can catch any error in my report relatively quickly