Free Credit Reports
Free credit reports are a great resource for people who want to keep tabs on their credit and make sure that their reports are accurate. People who have bad credit and are trying to fix it can benefit from free credit reports, as well. You have to know that you don’t have to pay for a free report, or at least not in most cases. Every single person is entitled to one free credit report annually, which can be obtained by writing the companies or visiting their parent site at annualcreditreport.com. The sites that make you pay for credit reports or monitoring services are hoping you don’t know this or need more than one report, but don’t fall for it if you don’t have to. If you want to qualify for a no money down loan for a home or car, you better make sure that you have good credit scores.
Getting a free credit report is an excellent first step when you are buying a house and need a home mortgage loan. In addition to income documentation, credit reports are a key component for a new home loan.
TransUnion, Experian, and Equifax will all give you a free copy of your report every single year. You can’t get your FICO score for free, but you can find many sites where you can sign up and pay a small fee to get the score. The trick here is, once you have your report and score, you cancel the account immediately so that you don’t incur charges every month and you get your free or cheap credit score.
Free credit reports from sites other than the annual site work the same way. Usually, you can sign up for a “free” 7 or 10 day trial and get a free report and/or score. Then, once you have the information, you can cancel the account unless you want to use the services and pay the monthly fees. There are always ways to get around the stipulations if you know what you’re doing. The trick is to cancel as soon as you can so that you don’t forget and rack up a bill as a result.
You should never have to pay for a credit report, unless you’ve already gotten your annual report and need one for loan or credit purposes during the same year. Even then, however, you shouldn’t pay a lot or anything at all if you take advantage of the different services that are available. Make sure that you don’t give your information to just anyone that claims to have free credit reports, however. You have to ensure that they’re a reputable resource and that they will actually give you a report without abusing your personal information or scamming you out of money. If you keep these things in mind, it will be easy for you to reap the benefits of getting free credit reports.
