Free Annual 3-in-1 Credit Reports
AnnualCreditReport.com: Featuring the top 3 credit reporting bureaus, Experian, Equifax and TransUnion, visiting AnnualCreditReport.com is a yearly MUST for everyone. It is the only website where you can get all 3 credit reports for free with no strings attached.
Why should you check your credit?
1. You need to know this information! We should all be aware of our credit rating, how good our chances are of opening a credit card or getting approved for a loan, and our overall financial standing. This better prepares us for major decisions in our lives. And if we need to improve our credit, this gives us a heads up to start making changes in order to improve our financial picture.
2. Errors. The people running the credit bureaus are not perfect and they can make mistakes. You don’t want to find out at the last minute before you purchase a car or home that you are being turned down for a loan because of a mistake on your credit report. Errors can be removed by contacting the credit bureaus individually, but you can’t remove errors if you’re not aware of them! Also, it is a must to check all 3 reports because one report may have an error that the other two do not.
3. Identity theft. (Listed as #3 but this is really #1! We save the best for last.) Someone may have stolen your identity and may be in the process of ruining your credit, driving you deep into debt or bankruptcy. Checking your credit report every year allows you to check up on the information that allows you to use credit or be denied for credit. Finding out about errors and fraud lets you take care of a problem before it gets out of hand. Once someone ruins your credit, you can spend the rest of your life paying for it.
If you have been a victim of identity theft, or you are worried about the potential of it happening to you, since it is the fastest growing crime today, you can purchase credit monitoring from the credit bureaus for a small fee each year that gives you regular updates throughout the year of all activity regarding your credit. You can find out when someone tries to open a credit card under your name or any other attempts to ruin your credit.
Many companies offer credit monitoring, and some offer free credit reports along with a free trial of their credit monitoring service.
Checking your own credit won’t lower your score. Here are some of your options:
Equifax.com – One of the 3 major credit reporting bureaus, Equifax offers you the opportunity to monitor all 3 major bureau credit reports. 3-in-1 Monitoring makes it easy for you to monitor all 3 of your nationwide credit reports by alerting you within 24 hours of key changes, all for $14.95 a month. They also offer Score Watch: Monitoring your credit score can lead to big savings and more purchasing power. A higher credit score typically means lower interest rates which will reduce your monthly payments – and that could mean saving thousands of dollars over the life of a loan, all for $12.95 a month.
TrustedID.com – The top name in identity theft protection. Protect yourself in less than 2 minutes: 30-day risk-free trial. After 30 days, plans range from $8.25 to $19.99 a month.
TrueCredit.com – Run by TransUnion, one of the 3 major credit reporting bureaus, TrueCredit offers 3-bureau credit monitoring that updates all 3 of your credit reports and scores every 30 days for $14.95 a month, plus up to $25,000 in indentity theft insurance at no additional cost. You can also get a free 30-day trial of TransUnion credit monitoring, which costs $11.95 a month thereafter.
LifeLock.com – LifeLock’s industry-leading protection works to help stop identity theft before it happens. They search the web for the illegal selling of your personal information, verify change of address requests, help replace the contents of a lost or stolen wallet, and take proactive steps to help put you in greater control of who has access to your credit. As a LifeLock member, if you become a victim of identity theft because of a failure in their service, they’ll help fix it at their expense, up to $1,000,000. (Restrictions apply.) Just $9.00 a month. Sign up for a whole year and save $9.00!
