I've been moving around a lot the past year, I finally just settled down rooming with Ovid. As a result my mail has been chasing me around and not all of it made it. So some bills got dropped on the floor, but my non-existant accounting system doesn't tell me what.
I found out from a friend one can get a free copy of their credit report every 12 months.
A recent amendment to the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) requires each of the nationwide consumer reporting companies to provide you with a free copy of your credit report, at your request, once every 12 months.
For some reason they're rolling it out west to east, so being in Oregon I can get my report now but those on the east cost have to wait until the end of the year. Interesting reading. You can see all your positive and negative credit reports. You can also see who has accessed your credit report and when. Discover, Capital One and Bankone DE like to look at my account a lot.
I found out that a few people think I owe them money. Some were correct. Most I have to dispute. All I can say about that is today I've encountered pretty much every crappy automated phone system, every flavor of hold music and every way to get my call dropped while on hold.
Fun.
There is one reason why you would want to pay for your credit report though -- if you wan to see your credit score. There are a couple of ways around that, of course. You should be able to get a look at it if you do anything major financially, like get a mortgage or refinance one.
Re:Free Credit Reports
merlyn on 2005-04-05T02:20:59
Or, my favorite trick... apply for something you're not likely to get (like American Express Plutonium or something), and they'll send you a rejection notice. The credit bureau listed on the rejection notice is required to give you a full disclosure of your credit report by law, for free.Re:Free Credit Reports
ziggy on 2005-04-05T03:10:32
That application and rejection is also tagged onto your credit report, and can have an adverse impact. So, would you rather pay the $30, or do some damage your credit rating by scaming a free score?Re:Free Credit Reports
ajtaylor on 2005-04-05T04:13:56
Ziggy's absolutely correct to a degree. IIRC, up to about 4 inquiries (within 6 months?) don't hurt you. One inquiry isn't going to hurt you.And you don't need to pay $30 for an individual report. You can get a single bureau report from myfico.coma for $15, and it includes the real FICO score. I also use a service called MyCreditKeeper.com to get a merged report from all 3 bureaus. It lets me pull as many reports as I want, as often as a I want. It isn't so good about getting information to contact the creditors on your report, but nothing's perfect.
:-)
