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A Guide to Free Credit Reports

Credit reports are an extremely useful tool for gauging your creditworthiness quickly and easily.  They can save you time and money by allowing you to plan effectively for the future, and the more frequently you check it, the faster you’ll be about catching an instance of identity theft.  There are a number of online tools available, and some of them are free.  Let’s think about which you should use and why, and how to get you started on it right away.

Benefits

A credit report is essential when you’re taking steps towards getting a personal or small business loan.  It’ll let you find out how high to aim, and allow you to work out a more thorough business plan, with the likely interest rates and repayment schedule that will drive you towards financial prosperity.

Checking your score regularly will allow you to stay ahead of fraud perpetrated on your behalf, which can be devastating if you’re not wise to it.  There’s a government website, Annualcreditreport.com, that will allow you to check your data for free once a year, but unfortunately, to manage effectively, you may want to verify more often than that.  And of course, you don’t want to pay more than you have to.

Pitfalls

That’s why there are a number of free tools available to you.  Annualcreditreport.com is the only government-authorized online service, so be wary of the similarly named scam sites out there.  They can be extremely misleading, and may try to charge you or redirect you to an unrelated site.  Genuine free tools exist, but you want to be careful about whether they’re doing what they’re advertising.  And more importantly, you’ll want to be sure that you’re getting an accurate report.

Whatever service you choose, do some research to determine whether it’s an overt scam.  If not, do some more research to determine where they’re getting their information.  The three major credit bureaus are Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian – and if they’re not accessing one or all of these databases, the score is probably misleading.

Getting Started

If you only need to look it up occasionally, Annualcreditreports.com really is a strong option.  The three majors are required by law to share their databases with this site, and you can access each of their determinations by entering in your social security number and a few other pieces of private data.  Don’t worry – it’s carefully encrypted by a major government agency, so it’s as secure as it gets.

Be careful with the other free rating sites out there: as already mentioned, they may be fraudulent or misleading.  If you’re looking for more, a better option may be to try Equifax’s free trial.  It entitles you to 3 free credit reports without obligation to buy their program.  Their database should be well-stocked and accurate.  If it isn’t, it may be time to start investigating if you’ve been the victim of fraud.

Conclusion

Free credit reports are plentiful on the web, but make sure you use the right one.  And if you want to keep using it for free, don’t check too often!