Get Your Real, Free Credit Report

To get on top of your credit situation, you need to know what’s in your credit report. Perusing your report is how you are going to discover mistakes that can unjustly hurt your score and is a crucial tool for detecting identity theft.

The good news is that, due to consumer pressure, Congress finally passed legislation under the Fair Credit Reporting Act that gives consumers the right to obtain three free credit reports a year. By spacing a request every four months, you can get one from each of the three credit reporting agencies during the year. The less than good news is that the credit reporting agencies have sought to make this process difficult. When you go on the internet to get your free credit report, they steer you as best they can toward information or products that must be purchased.

There are three ways to request your free credit report: online, by phone and via mail.

How to request your credit report online: Visit www.annualcreditreport.com. That is the official and only site for getting your free credit report.

Beware of other sites that may look and sound similar and liberally use the word “free.” They are not free; they are selling a product along with the report. Also, be careful if you’re doing a search and use phrases like “free credit report,” since that can lead to one of these commercial sites.

Once at www.annualcreditreport.com, click on your state first. Do not click on one of the three credit agency logos or you will be redirected to their site.

Then, fill out a simple verification of identity form that will ask for your social security number, address and date of birth.

Next, select which of the three nationwide credit reporting agencies from which you want to obtain a report.

On their sites you will again be asked to verify your identity through verification questions like who is your current mortgage holder, what is a former street you lived on, etc.

Then, you can print out your free credit report. But remember, you can only get one free report per year from each agency.

Note, this site is not the place for you to order your credit score. Why?

Because the law says they only have to give you the last FICO score that was calculated on your file. Well, that may have been a different type of inquiry and is not going to give you the most accurate score. They may also offer you Fako scores such as Vantage, Score Plus and True Credit. These are educational scores and not used by lenders when considering your credit requests.

To obtain your real FICO score, visit www.myfico.com.

How to Request Your Credit Report by Phone: Call 1-877/322-8228 to request credit report. You will go through a simple verification process over the phone. The reports will then be mailed directly to you.

How to Request Your Credit Report by Mail: To request your report by mail, fill out an request form and mail it to:

Annual Credit Report Request Service
PO Box 105281
Atlanta, GA 30348-5281

In order to obtain an official request form, you have to download it from the internet. (Beware, if you send a request on a non-official form, the security of your information is not guaranteed.) But if you have internet access, why waste a stamp and wait fifteen days when you can get your report immediately from www.annualcreditreport.com? It’s now an internet world.

This information is brought to you by SCORE "Counselors to America's Small Business"