How to Get Your Yearly Free Credit Report

Did you know that you are entitled to a yearly free credit report from each of the major national credit reporting companies? Yes, It’s true.

According to the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion are required by law to provide you with a free copy of your credit report.

These free credit reports will only be provided upon your request, you can repeat your request every 12 months. Since this is a free service, you should make the annual request part of your overall personal finance management plan.

In addition to your yearly free credit report, according to the law, you may also request a free credit report if you have been turned down for credit, employment, or insurance based on your credit rating. You are required to make this request within sixty days of getting notice of rejection.

Why Get My Credit Report?

You should make getting your credit report from each of the three reporting agencies part of your annual personal finance management to do list.

First off, check to see that all the information used to identify you is accurate. Your name, date of birth, social security number, home address, and current employment status will all be used to identify you. Make sure this information is current and correct.

You will also find an account summary, inquiry, and negative item list. You'll need to make sure everything in each list here is current and correct. You don't want to get turned down for a loan or mortgage because your credit report contains inaccurate or erroneous information about your credit profile.

Should you discover any errors in your credit report you should report them to the credit reporting company. They should investigate the error and correct it within a month. If you are negotiating a new loan at that time make sure you advise your lender of the error too.

Monitoring your credit report annually is another good way to fight identity theft to ensure no one has attempted to open a new credit card account or take out a loan in your name.

Requesting Your Yearly Free Credit Report

So, how do you go about getting your free copy of credit report?

You have a couple of options. You can use a service that requests all of the reports for you in one easy step or you can contact each credit reporting agency and make the request yourself. This second option can take just a little more time, but it's free. Use the money you save to pay off some debt.

While there is nothing wrong with using a legitimate service for monitoring your credit if you are just too busy to deal with it yourself, make sure you read the fine print and don’t get locked into some long-term automated billing arrangement that sucks money out of your account each month.

It's easy to follow the instructions below and get your credit report for free.

Information Required for Credit Report

When you request your yearly free credit report, you will be asked for some basic information to confirm your identity.

You will need to provide your name, address, social security number, and date of birth, at a minimum. If you have moved recently, you may also need to provide your prior address. And, it is common for each reporting agency to ask one more question in order to prevent fraud and to uniquely identify you. For example, they might ask you to verify a prior place of residence or automobile you once owned.

Spend some time analyzing your report, and be sure to follow up with creditors to correct any errors you find.