We all know that financial institutions have become increasingly risk adverse, and therefore it is more important than ever to ensure that your credit reports are in order to maximise your chances of being approved for any loan. It is particularly essential that you check for inaccurate information; there are exemplary individuals being refused for credit on the basis of incorrect reports. The good news is that any American citizen is able to check their credit reports at no cost, thanks to the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions (FACT) Act of 2003, this replaced the earlier Fair Credit Reporting Act (FRCA) 2001; the act allows you to access your reports from each of the three recognised credit bureaus once in every 12 month period. These three recognised agencies are Trans Union, Equifax and Experian, a report from any other agency is not worth the paper it is written on. Any business that offers to provide you with your credit report, and which has not been obtained from these agencies, will be a scam. You should note immediately that this whole hub relates solely to American citizens.

Get Your Free Credit Score

To obtain your free credit score, simply visit www.annualcreditreport.com where you will have the option of viewing the reports immediately online, checking them over the telephone, or to request a hard paper copy in the post. You also have the benefit of being able to check all three reports at the same time or accessing one report at a time, this means that you could in theory check your report at three different stages of each year, say January, May, and October; this is perfectly viable as these three reports are almost identical, this a system that would allow you to monitor changes in your information as they happen. If you do decide not to get all three at the same time, please be aware that you risk missing incorrect information on any one of the agency reports. You should also be aware that, when requesting a hard copy, shipping can take several weeks, therefore this method should only be chosen when you require information urgently.

Another Way To Get Free Credit Reports

In addition to these completely free copies, there is also another way that you can access free credit reports, doing this does of course mean that you are actually getting more than your three free credit score checks, but you need to be smart for this. Basically it entails signing up for a free trial directly with the three recognised agencies via their official websites, one such site is www.freecreditreport.comwhich allows you to access your credit report for free for a 7 day period, this site is actually a subsidiary company of the Equifax Credit Bureau so it is only your Equifax report which you will be able to access. Trans Union also offer a free trial via their website at www.truecredit.com, this trial is for 30 days and this site will only provide you with you Trans Union credit report. If you do have to use free trials to access your reports, please remember to cancel them within the allotted time! If you forget to cancel your free trial you will find some pretty hefty bank account debits, with Equifax charging you $14.95 per month that you forget to cancel, and Trans Union charging $11.95 for each that you forget to cancel.

There are of course many other sites that will offer to provide you with a free copy of your credit report, but it is imperative to remember that if they are not affiliated with Equifax, Trans Union or Experian they are completely useless. These are the only three agencies that could ever influence a financial service provider should you apply for credit.