Free Credit Reports Now Available in All 50 States
As of September 1, 2005 citizens in all parts of the US have the legal right to request and obtain a free copy of their credit report from each of the major credit reporting agencies. The credit report is one of the most important documents used in the credit application process and impacts many other aspects of daily life: job applications, car insurance premiums, apartment rentals, just to name a few.
In the past, you had the right to see your credit report free of charge only after being denied a loan. Now you can check your report (for free) before making application. With the billions of pieces of information processed by the credit bureaus each month, the possibilitiy of errors is huge. Your best defense is to periodically monitor your credit report to detect errors before they do you harm. Monitoring your credit report is also one of the best ways to proect against identity theft and fraud.
To get maximum mileage from your new rights, you should consider laddering requests to the three credit agencies (Equifax, Experian and TransUnion) so that you receive one report every four months. This allows you to monitor any changes throughout the year and avoid surpises.
To obtain your first free credit report got to www.annualcreditreport.com.
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By N2H
[...] I guess I’m a bit behind here, but thanks to the HELOC Blog, I’m back on the ball. As of September 1, all citizens of the US can obtain FREE Credit Reports from all 3 credit bureaus (Experian, TransUnion, Equifax). This information is extremly important, and you should check all 3 at least once a year to ensure there are no problems. [...]
Thanks for the reminder! I forgot to inform our users, until I saw your post. Its great that we can get these reports. I know quite a few people, including myself who have dealt with ID fraud. Checking your Credit is essential to knowing what is going on.
BTW - I’ve added your blog to our Blogroll - http://realestatenews.biggerpockets.com/
Would you consider linking back to our Blog or main website - http://www.biggerpockets.com ???
Great Blog, BTW!!!
Hi Joshua -
Thanks for the comment. Checked out your sites and have added your blog to the Resources page here and will add Biggerpockets.com to the personal finance resources page in the next day or two.
Always happy to add quality sites like yours to our resources.
Tim
Great to hear! Thanks.
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