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U.S. Govt. Stipulates Free Annual Credit Reports
alue writes "Under the terms of the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions (FACT) Act, passed last year, and amid growing concerns over privacy and disclosure of sensitive financial data, the three leading credit reporting agencies must provide consumers with a free summary once a year of all credit information on file for that person. Consumers in 13 Western states will be able to grab free online copies of their credit reports starting Wednesday."
FTFA:
Should I order all my credit file disclosures at one time or space them out over 12 months?
You are entitled to receive one free credit file disclosure every 12 months from each of the nationwide consumer credit reporting companies through the Central Source. It is entirely your choice whether you order all three credit file disclosures at the same time or order one now and others later. The advantage of ordering all three at the same time is that you can compare them. (However, you will not be eligible for another free credit file disclosure from the Central Source for 12 months.) On the other hand, the advantage of ordering one now and others later (for example, one credit file disclosure every four months) is that you can keep track of any changes or new information that may appear on your credit file disclosure. Remember, you are entitled to receive one free credit file disclosure through the Central Source every 12 months from each of the nationwide consumer credit reporting companies - Equifax, Experian and TransUnion - so if you order from only one company today you can still order from the other two companies at a later date.
This is really good. The number of people with mistakes on credit reports is pretty high. Especially if anyone is to do anything major (buy a car, get a mortgage), you need to check your credit beforehand! IIRC, if you have been turned down for credit before, you can request a copy of the report in writing within (I think) a 60-day time period.
Here's their general contact info:
Equifax (800) 685-1111
P.O. Box 740243, Atlanta, GA 30374
Experian (888) 397-3742
P.O. Box 2002, Allen, TX 75013-3742
Trans Union (800) 916-8800
P.O. Box 1000, Chester, PA 19022
Also, if you want to opt-out those pre-approved credit solicitations, you can call (888) 567 8688 or contact the above parties by mail (make sure you reference your name, address, and SSN).
Equifax Inc.
Options
P.O. Box 740123
Atlanta, GA 30374-0123
Experian
Consumer Opt-Out
901 West Bond
Lincoln, NE 68521
Trans Union LLC
Name Removal Option
P.O. Box 97328
Jackson, MS 39288-7328
That being said, you should have been checking your credit once a year or so to make sure there's no mistakes. If you're buying a house in the next year, check now for any mistakes. They can take a looong time to fix.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
The FACT act says that people in western states can get this now but some states, specifically Colorado, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Vermont, have required credit bureaus to do this for a while.
Contact the bureaus at the addresses in my other post. However, it is usually much quicker to contact the company reporting the incorrect information. Often times they just haven't updated anything and a call will quickly fix it. This is especially true for smaller local banks and consumer credit card companies. If they won't update that information, contact the bureaus, who will then contact the company and tell them, "Hey, fix this."
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
The registar is shielded by Domains-by-proxy. There's no reason to do that for a REAL credit check site. Also, there's no SSL certificate.
It's not too hard.
two of the big three have an online option to dispute. You send them the corrections and they look into it and respond back.
I had on one of them something from some agency that I had no idea what it was ($160), they also had an alias/address of some random guy in California (where I never lived). So I clicked the is not me radio button and wrote in explanation "This company never called me, I don't know who they are and received no contact from them in any form".
I got a reply in 2 weeks that said it was deleted, and received a new report in the mail to verify it.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
In short, yes it is enough.
I recently went through some hassles trying to clear a delinquent account off my credit report. The thing is, this delinquent account was only reported by two of the three agencies. In fact, each of the agencies listed a different current address for me (former military, so I moved a fair amount), as well as slightly different account information.
If you find a discrepancy on your credit report, the first thing you need to get is evidence - preferably in the form of a letter or statement from the company making the negative report. Put that together with a letter giving an explanation of the situation. It's not a bad idea to put your last two addresses in addition to your current address, in notes at the bottom of the letter. Send copies of this to all three agencies (details can be found at their individual websites).
After a week or two processing time, the credit agencies will send you a written reply telling you the results of your challenge. Included with this will be an *updated copy* of your credit report detailing the changes that have been made.
One other thing to keep in mind when working with your credit: feel free to challenge something even if you know it's a legitimate negative item. If you tell the credit companies "No, I didn't bounce that check three years ago.", they have to attempt to contact the bank that claims you did. If that bank does not respond within a set time period (I believe it's 30 days, but I would have to double check), the negative item is wiped off your record.
Finally... bad credit items stay on your report for *SEVEN YEARS*. All you college students keep this in mind. Additionally, a good number of companies are doing credit checks as part of their interview process nowadays. It's also required if you're going to get a security clearance from the US Government.
Transplant
Disclaimer: I am not a credit counselor, nor do I work for any financial institutions. So, double check what I've just said before you take it as fact.
Everyone is entitled to see their credit report once a year for free. It has been that way as long as I can remember. The hard part was figuring out how to get it. If you ever applied for credit and were denied you were supposed to get a form to allow you to get a copy of the credit report for free to see why you were denied. This was only once a year. I actually had a website at one point that covered tons of details but it became outdated so I took it down. Don't apply for credit just to get the free credit report. You take a hit for an inquiry. Another piece of advice is that if you ever do apply for credit, do it all at once because there is a cap on how many hits you can take now. Now it is possible to shop around for the best rates when buying a car/home without taking a 100 pt hit on your credit just for all of the inquiries.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one the bus load of girls just went down.
Immediate impressions:
0) The idea is that you give the annualcreditreport.com's site your details, and then go back and forth between there and the three reporting agencies' websites. This worked pretty well. They have an interesting security feature where the site only works if you type the URL directly or the referrer is one of the 3 credit agencies.
1) Experian's site was broken --- it reported an error, but I bet the annualcreditreport.com now thinks I've used up my 1 free report with them anyway.
2) They don't give you your FICO score (the number summarizing your creditworthiness), but offer to sell it to you for 5 or 6 bucks, instead.
3) The sites do basically the same things, but the contrasts in processing and reporting styles between Equifax and TransUnion (Experian he broken, remember) are interesting:
* Equifax asked me a trick security question to verify my identity: "You may have a mortgage from January 2001 -- Which of the following is the monthly payment?" The answer for me was 'None of the above' as I don't have a mortgage from then. But it scared the shit out of me when I saw the question! Talk about identity theft!
* Transunion makes you establish a login name / password / reminder question + email contact, and tries to sneak in a spam newsletter. Equifax doesn't do this.
* Both sites try hard to get you to buy your FICO score.
* Transunion's report presents its information better than Equifax's.
When I requested my credit reports before I got married they asked some questions that even I had problems answering. An example of a few I remember are: You currently have a student loan issued by which of the following banks? Bank A. Bank B. Bank C. None of the Above. Or another was What was the address you lived at when you received credit card XXXX?
These are good questions and I'm sure they've gove through a lot of work try and figure out how to ensure your credit report only goes to the appropriate person. While there are reasons to be leary of the credit reporting industry this is NOT one of them.
My Slashdot account is old enough to drink...
You have some bad advice in your post.
Only living in certian states entitled you receive a free report anually or semi-anually. If you lived outside one of those states, you either had to pay for it, go to a "free" credit reporting site that would give you one free in order to hook you on their credit monitoring service, or request a free report under one of the following conditions:
- Been denied credit
- Had a collection agency state that their credit rating may be affected by a collection,
- Unemployeed and intend to be employeed within 60 days of making the request (1 time/year)
- recipient of public welfare assistance (1 time/year)
- Beleive the file contains inaccurate information (1 time/year) but if there is inaccurate information, you can request a 2nd one to confirm it has been removed
The maximum the big 3 can charge for a credit report directly is $8. This likely will get you a fairly raw report but is still fairly easy to understand. Services that charge more are just profiting from you in exchange for making them a little easier to read.
You are right that it's bad to apply for credit in order to get the free report as it does count against you. However, you are incorrect that you should apply for credit all at once as there is a cap on the number of hits.
Applying for mortgages and car loans only count as 1 hit within a 30- or 60-day time frame, so it's good advice to apply at several different places to compare rates and terms. However, each seperate other applicaiton of credit, say for credit cards or store financing offers, count as sperate hits. Doing too many will add up and I don't beleive there is a limit on the number of those hits.
You can get a free credit report already if you get turned down for credit. This is just going to swamp the credit bureaus with unnecessary requests and make it harder to get mistakes corrected. It's cheap to get a report anyway. This is just the govt pretending to do something for the little guy.
If the govt really wanted to do something meaningful, they would stop employers from pulling credit reports for employee candidates. It's truly unfair for anonymous HR wankers to evaluate the worth of a candidate based on credit scores, scores that can be ruined by illness, theft, unemployment, or a former spouse. Many talented, hard-working IT professionals have been unemployed for long stretches.
All of this personal information floating around contributes to identity theft as well.
Good heavens Miss Sakamoto - you're beautiful!
Since its pretty obvious you haven't pulled your own credit report through one of the bureaus before let me give you a run-down of the things you must verify.
Start with your SSN, home address, phone number, etc. After authenticating all of that information you will get probably five questions like the following:
In October 2001, a request to open a loan was made by Toyota Financial Services, how much is this payment each month for this loan
A. 200.27 - 224.56
B. 235.57 - 260.01
C. 265.33 - 290.17
D. 315.29 - 327.89
E. I do not have an account with this institution
Now when I go through it, I have to pull my bills to answer all the questions . This is one of the things that the bureaus have been good at in terms of enforcing security by putting these questions to the person requesting their credit file.
For great credit advice on how to fix your credit, go to Credit Boards. Found this a few weeks ago. Good stuff.
Besides the obvious like credit card accounts and mortgages, credit scores are used in many other places. These include insurance products of all kinds (though some states prohibit this), signing up for utilities, rent applications, some job applications. Even some rental car agencies have experimented with using your scores.
There is a scary practice called "universal default". One bad glitch in one credit account can be used to restrict credit in many other accounts, even though you didnt abuse those accounts.
I doomed now that I turned in my library books late last week !!!
Trans Union contact information
Equifax contact information
Experian has the same info that I had to google for, it was not in the main "Contact Us" area.
You make a valid point, however.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
Call this one number to opt out of all three bureaus:
Opt Out
888-567-8688
I did this about a year ago and it stopped the offers cold. It's a single-point where you can tell all four credit reporting agencies to stop giving your data to direct marketers.
But don't take my word for it, put the phone number in Google and read all about it.
I tried every decent and legal way I could think of to resolve the issue w/the business before I rented the chicken suit
The Big Three do not distinguish between you asking for your credit report and anyone else asking for it
t _scores.html
Bzzt. Wrong. The credit agencies distinguish between a credit report pulled from the consumer versus a creditor. Futhermore, creditors that pull your report for 'promotional' reasons such as determining eligibility for 'pre-approved' credit cards don't count either.
Let me quote from Experian site: http://www.experian.com/credit_score_basics/credi
'Certain types of inquiries (requests for your credit report). The score does not count "consumer disclosure inquiry" requests you have made for your credit report in order to check it. It also does not count "promotional inquiry" requests made by lenders in order to make a "pre-approved" credit offer - or "account review inquiry" requests made by lenders to review your account with them. Finally, inquiries for employment purposes are not counted.'