Free Credit Report
You’ve probably seen the phrase “free credit report” a million times. It’s plastered on websites everywhere, but is it really free? The answer is yes, and no.
First of all, if you want the official free credit report, you must go to:
http://www.annualcreditreport.com
This is the home of the legitimate, federally backed credit reporting service that entitles consumers to order a free credit report from the 3 credit reporting bureaus once every 12 months. The whole free credit report no credit card one.
What that means is that you can order each report separately from the 3 credit report bureaus throughout the year, or order all 3 at once. I recommend ordering all at once because the credit bureaus are notorious for reporting different information, and it’s really pointless to have one or two credit scores when banks, lenders, and other creditors take the median score of all three.
I read an article where someone said to order a report from a separate bureau every 4 months which sounds good in theory, but as I mentioned before, you really won’t be able to gauge your median score with just one or two credit bureau reports. And you won’t know if one particular credit bureau is reporting everything you need to know.
All that said, there are also a number of other so-called free credit report agencies floating around as well. The majority of them are backed by the 3 credit bureaus, including Equifax, Experian, and Transunion.
They all offer free credit reports, but there are a few catches. On Experian for example, they offer a free credit report for 30 days with a money-back guarantee, assuming you cancel within the first 30 days. If you don’t cancel, they will charge $9.95 a month for enrollment in their credit reporting program.
Transunion offers the exact same thing, with the same fee, and Equifax offers score watch for $7.95 a month, and a gold service for $12.95 a month.
All these paid credit report services are essentially the same. They offer a credit report each month, that may be updated weekly, and credit tools to dispute any lates or collections. That is where they come in handy.
I disputed a collection account once after using the services of one of these pay free credit report companies, and eventually got the collection removed from my credit report. It boosted my score a ton, but I did have to pay for one month of the credit monitoring service because the dispute took over a month. It was worth it, but make sure you need these services before signing up. The legitimate free credit report service is a good way to indicate if you need to use the paid services.
And remember, you can always sign up for one of the three bureaus free credit reports, and then close your account within 30 days assuming they have a 30-day money back guarantee. Either way, never pay for a credit report until you order your free copy first.
Learn about free credit reports vs credit monitoring.