Everyone has probably seen those Free Credit Report commercials on TV that show the guy suffering, because he never checked his credit report.
Well that site, Freecreditreport.
com, he advertises is really a paid service by Experian, one of the credit bureaus.
It is true you can receive a free report and credit score from them but in the registration process you are also signing up for a credit monitoring service.
You have seven days to cancel your free trial upon applying for your report before they charge your credit card.
It is not such a free credit report after all.
Fortunately, the government through the Federal Credit Reporting Act offers a way to receive a truly free credit report from each of the credit agencies - Experian, Equifax and TransUnion, once a year.
In order to take advantage of this offer the government has set up the website http://www.
annualcreditreport.
com where one enters their state and some personal information so you can be identified.
Then you can quickly download a report.
It is possible to also mail or phone your request, but is a much more time intensive process.
According to the Federal Trade Commission, this site is the only legitimate site to request a free report no strings attached.
One can also pay a small fee to request their credit score.
I have found that requesting a free report from a different agency once every four months offers the most versatility.
Each credit agency may have recorded different information so it is important to see them all.
Yet spacing them out lets you keep an eye on any strange transactions or requests that may appear.
It optimizes your credit reports each year and costs you nothing.