My Credit Report Experience

I finally got my credit reports. I went to www.annualcreditreports.com, which is a Web site that the three main credit reporting bureaus put together after the law was passed in 2005 that requires each credit bureau to provide you with a free copy of your credit report every year. See Get Your Free Credit Report for details.

By the way, avoid other Web sites that offer free credit reports. Some of them trick you into ordering something you have to pay for. Your FICO score isn't included in the free deal, so if you really want that, you'll have to pay for it, but you don't really need it unless you're going to be applying for a loan and want to make sure your score is oaky, or you've been working on improving your credit and want to see if it's working. To learn more about your FICO score, why it's important, and why you might want to know what your score is, see Your FICO Score.

When you go to www.annualcreditreport.com, there are links to each of the three credit reporting bureaus: Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion. You choose the first one you want to order and it takes you directly to that credit bureau's Web site. What makes the whole thing work so smoothly is that when you're done ordering that credit report, there's a link at the top of the page that takes you back to www.annualcreditreport.com so you can continue ordering from the other bureaus. It saves time.

You can view your credit report right online and print it out. You can also set up a user name and password so you can come back as many times as you like for 30 days and review your report (it won't be updated each time but it might be convenient to be able to go back and look at it again or reprint it). ~ Mary