How to get a credit report for free

All Americans are entitled to free credit reports every year from each of the three major credit bureaus. The credit reports used to cost as much as $9.50 each.

The three major credit-reporting agencies, Equifax, TransUnion and Experian, are each required to provide consumers, upon request, a free copy of their credit report once every 12 months.

The reports will not be sent automatically. Each consumer must request reports one of these three ways:

• Go to AnnualCreditReport.com, which is the only authorized source for consumers to access their annual credit report online for free.

• Call (877) 322-8228.

• Complete the form on the back of the Annual Credit Report Request brochure, and mail it to: Annual Credit Report Request Service, P.O. Box 105281, Atlanta, GA 30348-5281. The brochure, which can be ordered or printed, is available from the Federal Trade Commission. Click here for more information.

A credit report is simply a rundown of your payment history, listing your accounts, balances and your payment behavior for each. It is not a credit score, or FICO, the three-digit gauge of your creditworthiness used by lenders, employers and insurers. But credit scores do use the information on your credit reports in their calculations, so it’s important to spot and correct inaccuracies as quickly as possible.

What’s the catch?

You can order all three credit reports at one time, or at different times throughout the year. It’s your choice. But be sure to order from the centralized agency. If you go directly to the credit-reporting agencies, you will be charged unless you fit other criteria for a free report.

The new ruling doesn’t replace the other ways to receive a free credit report. You’re still entitled to a free credit report if: you’ve been denied a loan, insurance policy or job based on your credit report; you’re applying for unemployment or receive public assistance; or you currently reside in a state that already offers free credit reports from each credit-reporting agency (Colorado, Georgia, Maine, Massachusetts, Maryland, New Jersey and Vermont).

Watch for typos

You can access your information online at AnnualCreditReport.com, but if you don’t get the Web address exactly right or if you search for terms such as “free credit report,” you could get sucked in and scammed by one of the many credit report “impostors” currently inhabiting cyber-world.

The trio of reporting agencies established a single authorized Web source for customers to access the information for free: AnnualCreditReport.com. That is the only federally mandated source for free, no-strings-attached credit reports.

The rest of the Internet Web sites advertising “free” reports — more than 100 at last count — are in fact impostors whose real agenda is to steer unsuspecting consumers into a for-profit marketing enterprise, according to a World Privacy Forum in-depth investigation and report.

Dozens of the confusing sites are operated by Experian, Equifax and TransUnion, the big three bureaus who together run the government-mandated and authorized free-report site. In other words, while they run one Web site jointly that offers free reports, they’re also running dozens of other sites — often under different names — that charge for the same or additional services.

Where and how to get the goods

The same law that mandated free credit reports also covers other types of information about you, which include:

• Medical information. If you’ve applied for life, health, disability or long-term care policies, information about your health may have been reported to the Medical Information Bureau. This membership association of 600 companies is designed to help insurers detect fraud and deter applicants from lying on applications.

• Tenant history. No single company dominates this field, but one of the larger screening agencies is First Advantage SafeRent.

• Auto and homeowners insurance claims. ChoicePoint’s CLUE reports can be ordered at ChoiceTrust.com, while ISO’s A-Plus reports can be ordered by calling (800) 709-8842 or by writing A-Plus Consumer Inquiry Center, 545 Washington Blvd. 22nd Floor, Jersey City, NJ 07310-1686.

• Check-writing history. ChexSystems is the largest player in this arena. It maintains a database of people who have “mishandled” their bank accounts (typically by repeatedly bouncing checks). You can order a report online (ignore any reference to a “small fee”) or call (800) 428-9623 or send snail-mail to ChexSystems, Attn: Consumer Relations, 7805 Hudson Road, Suite 100, Woodbury, MN 55125.

• Employment screeners. A typical background-checking firm doesn’t maintain “permanent” files on consumers and instead puts together a one-time report for employers. Only companies that maintain databases of information on consumers must provide free reports. However, employers must get your written permission before a third party can run a background check, and you’re entitled to see the report if it’s used to deny you a job or promotion.

Myrtle Beach Credit Repair – Jason Carr 843.839.8578
Today, more than ever, good credit is a must. Our economy demands that consumers have near perfect credit to buy a home, an auto or obtain any type of credit line. At times these requirements can seem unrealistic or unattainable. The staff at Carolina Credit Repair is here to help you improve your credit rating and achieve your dreams.
Do you need a specialist in credit repair? Call 843.839.8578

Raise your credit score to 740

Credit scores are three-digit numbers lenders use to gauge your creditworthiness, and until the financial crisis hit, a 720 FICO credit score was enough to get the best loan terms. Even people with lower scores could get decent deals, and at the peak of the lending boom it seemed that no score was so low that it merited a rejection.

These days, lenders typically demand 740 scores for the best mortgage rates. Lower scores mean higher rates or perhaps no loans at all. Fannie Mae, the giant mortgage-buying agency, recently lifted its minimum score requirement from 580 to 620.

People with top scores are still getting credit card and balance transfer offers. If their issuers raise their rates or lower their limits, they can move their business elsewhere. People with weaker scores, by contrast, are finding their access to credit slowly strangled. Issuers can push them around, and credit seekers have little recourse.

Less-than-stellar credit can hurt in other ways. After all, credit information is used by:

• Insurance companies to evaluate applicants and set premiums.
• Landlords to decide who gets apartments.
• Employers concerned about higher risk of theft from those with troubled finances.

Clearly, cultivating good credit scores is an essential 21st-century skill.

The good news is that it’s possible to boost your numbers if you have a handle on your finances and you know how credit scores work. After all, the median credit score is 720 on the 300-to-850 FICO scale, meaning half the adult U.S. population has a higher score and half has a lower score. Forty percent have scores over 750, and 13% have scores above 800, according to Fair Isaac, the company that created FICO scoring. (You can get an idea of your relative standing with MSN Money’s free credit score estimator; it uses Experian’s Plus score ranges, which roughly align to FICO.)

Plenty of folks are handling their credit well enough to earn good scores. You can, too. But first you need to recognize that:

• You can’t raise your scores if your finances are still in free fall. If you’re unable to pay your bills, you certainly can’t fix your credit. Real credit score repair will have to wait until your financial crisis has been solved and you have enough money to cover your expenses, plus some extra to begin paying down your debts.
• You can’t raise your scores if you don’t use credit. Credit scores try to predict how well you’re likely to use credit in the future by how well you’ve used it in the past. So while living a cash-only lifestyle may do wonders for your wallet, it won’t boost your scores — in fact, without continuing use of some type of credit, eventually your credit reports won’t even generate credit scores.
• You don’t have to pay credit card interest to achieve great scores. “Using credit” is not the same as “carrying a balance on your credit cards.” Carrying a balance is expensive, bad for your finances and completely unnecessary. Many of us who have achieved 800-plus scores pay off our balances religiously, and we know you can build and keep great credit scores without ever paying a dime of credit card interest.
• You can’t expect overnight results. You’re likely to see improvement in your scores within 30 days if you pay down significant chunks of your credit card debt. But otherwise, credit repair takes time, and how much time depends on the many details of your credit reports. If you have serious black marks, such as bankruptcies or foreclosures, you can see significant improvement in your scores as time passes but you may have to wait until those negatives drop off your credit reports before you can join the 700-Plus Club.

Now that you understand the basics, you can use the following techniques to get your scores over 740.

You have to nail the basics

Patrol your credit reports. Your credit scores are based entirely on the information in your credit reports on file at the big three credit bureaus: Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. If the information is wrong, your credit scores could suffer. You can get your reports once a year for free from the government-run AnnualCreditReport.com; you can buy subsequent copies directly from the bureaus or from myFICO.com. Dispute any serious errors, such as:

• Accounts that aren’t yours.
• Reports of late payments when you paid on time.
• Bankruptcies older than 10 years or accounts that were wiped out in bankruptcy but are listed as still due.
• Other negative information that’s older than seven years. (The seven-year clock typically starts 180 days after the account first went delinquent.)

Get a major credit card. Retail cards and gas cards can help you build your credit history initially, but to get your scores into 700-plus territory you’ll want at least one big kahuna: Visa, MasterCard, Discover or American Express. If you can’t qualify for a regular card, consider a secured version, for which you make a deposit with an issuing bank. You can find offers at CardRatings.com, CreditCards.com, LowCards.com and Index Credit Cards, among other sites. Just make sure the card reports to all three bureaus, and try to get a card that converts to a regular credit card after 12 to 18 months of on-time payments.

Arrange automatic payments for every card or loan. Credit scores are extraordinarily sensitive to whether you pay your bills on time, so don’t let travel, a busy schedule or a simple brain cramp trash your scores. Most lenders will let you set up automatic payments that take an amount you specify — the minimum payment, a set dollar amount or the full balance — every month from your checking account.

Don’t let disputes go to collections. Yes, your insurance should have covered that bill; no, you shouldn’t have to pay for a broadband connection that doesn’t work. But if you let a commonplace problem like these escalate, your account will be turned over to collections and become a big black mark on your credit reports. Pay under protest and get your revenge in small claims court. (Don’t get sued yourself, though: Lawsuits and judgments are another major stain on your credit reports.)

Give your limits a wide berth

Pay down and spread out your debt. More than a third of your FICO score depends on how much of your available credit you’re using — your so-called credit utilization. The FICO formula likes to see big gaps between your balances (whether you pay them off each month or not) and your limits, especially on credit cards. (You’re rewarded for paying down installment debt, such as mortgages and auto loans, but your scores improve much more dramatically when you pay down revolving debt such as credit cards.) In short, it’s better to have small balances on several cards than a big balance on one card. For more, read “A debt payoff plan that works

.”

A balance is a balance. You have to worry about your credit utilization ratio even if you pay your balances in full each month. The balance that’s reported to the credit bureaus is typically the one on your last statement, not the balance that’s left over after you pay your bill. So if you charge $9,000 on a $10,000 card, it’s going to look like you’re using 90% of your limit (which is really, really bad), even though you paid off the balance in full when you got the bill.

Shoot for 10%. The less of your available credit you use, the more FICO rewards you. Keeping your credit utilization below 30% on your cards is good; getting it below 10% is even better. If you regularly use more, ask for a higher limit, spread your charges out on more than one card or make two payments every month — one just before your monthly statement closing date to lower the balance reported to the credit bureaus and a second one just before the due date to avoid late fees.

But don’t let your cards gather dust. Overloading your cards is a bad thing for your scores, but so is not using them at all. The scoring formula prefers to see accounts that are being actively used rather than sitting on a shelf. Even a little activity is better than no activity.

Push back against lower limits. Credit card issuers are reducing limits right and left. In fact, one banking analyst estimated that by the end of 2010, risk-averse companies will have slashed in half the $5 trillion in credit limits that existed before the financial crisis. This can be awful news for your credit scores, but you can, and should, try to push back. (Read “Thaw out your frozen credit” for details.) If you can’t get the issuer to reverse its decision, try to move your balance elsewhere.

Myrtle Beach Credit Repair – Jason Carr 843.839.8578
Today, more than ever, good credit is a must. Our economy demands that consumers have near perfect credit to buy a home, an auto or obtain any type of credit line. At times these requirements can seem unrealistic or unattainable. The staff at Carolina Credit Repair is here to help you improve your credit rating and achieve your dreams.
Do you need a specialist in credit repair? Call 843.839.8578