How To Get A Free Credit Report – Compare Top Options

Free credit reports are available from several sources, including WalletHub, which is the first website to offer free credit reports and scores that are updated on a daily basis. WalletHub also provides an early-warning system for credit-report changes in the form of 24/7 credit monitoring, plus customized guidance to help you save more money. All you have to do is sign up (it’s 100% free).

Get Your Free Credit Report Now

But WalletHub isn’t the only place you can get a free credit report. The most important alternative is AnnualCreditReport.com, the government-sponsored site where we all can get a copy of each of our three major credit reports every 12 months. While WalletHub provides unlimited access to your full TransUnion credit report, updated daily, you can use AnnualCreditReport.com to review your other two reports from Experian and Equifax. But don’t check both at the same time. Review one of them now, and save the other one for later — say, six months from now. Pulling your Experian and Equifax reports in six-month rotations will help you ensure you’re not missing anything for an extended period of time. Just bear in mind that using only AnnualCreditReport.com would be a mistake, as it would blind you to credit-report changes for much of the year.

Below, you can learn more about how to check your reports from the big-three credit bureaus, as well as the 40+ other consumer reporting agencies that might have information on you.

Where To Get A Free Credit Report

 

A number of other services offer credit report access as part of a paid package. We don’t recommend using them simply because there are so many free alternatives, but you can learn all about all of your options from our full comparison of the best credit report sites.

Alternative Credit Reports

TransUnion, Experian and Equifax aren’t the only credit reporting agencies that track your financial performance. Tens of other companies across the country maintain data on your rent payments, check-writing history and insurance claims. Along with traditional credit data, this alternative information is then factored into the decisions made by financial institutions, landlords, employers and insurers.

Fortunately, the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) entitles consumers to free annual copies of these “specialty” reports. You can order them directly from the companies that compile them and find contact information for each one on WalletHub’s Credit Reporting Agency Overview.

Why Check Your Credit Reports?

A lot of people think that checking their credit score once in a while or just a short period before they apply for credit is enough to get by, and many others don’t even think that far. The truth is that you’re bound to miss a lot if you don’t review at least one of your credit reports on a regular basis. And that’s problematic because what you don’t know about your credit can and will cost you.

More specifically, here are some of the biggest reasons why checking your credit report is important and what can happen if you don’t:

• Credit Bureaus Make Mistakes: Roughly one in four of us has a mistake on one of our major credit reports that is significant enough to result in rejection by a lender, landlord, insurer, employer or other type of creditor, according to a study by the Federal Trade Commission. And if you do manage to get approved for a loan or line of credit despite this disadvantage, you’ll wind up needlessly wasting money on a worse offer than you truly deserve.In other words, taking a few minutes to make sure your credit report is accurate – especially if your credit score isn’t excellent – is an investment that could save you big in terms of both time and money in the long run.

• Credit Reports Can Reveal Fraud: Financial fraud can take many forms, most of which will manifest on your credit report before anywhere else. The warning sign could be something as overt as an unknown account being opened in your name, a bankruptcy filing showing up in your public records or a collections account appearing unexpectedly. Or it could be something as simple as a change to your listed name and address. Regardless, you might not notice if you’re not plugged in to your credit report.“Many people think, ‘Well, I’m not about to apply for credit; I’m not about to get a loan; I don’t need to get my credit report,’” said Gail Cunningham, vice president of membership and public relations with the National Foundation for Credit Counseling. “Yes, you do because you could be a victim of identity theft.”That’s why you should review your reports at least once a year, and make sure that your free-credit-report provider offers free 24/7 credit monitoring, too (like WalletHub!). This will give you day-to-day peace of mind. And that figures to be worthwhile regardless of your current financial situation or plans for the future.

• Improvement Requires Reflection: Reviewing your credit report will give you much-needed perspective, making it easier to determine what you’re doing right (g., on-time monthly payments) as well as which areas of your financial performance need improvement (e.g., high credit utilization). Both the good and the bad will inevitably affect your credit score, but they have to hit your credit report first, and they’ll be easier to diagnose when they’re there. WalletHub makes things easy on you by grading each component of your credit, telling you exactly where you’re excelling and lacking.

Some of these reasons are relevant all the time; others matter most when you’re planning to apply for a loan. A mistake on your credit report could cost you thousands of dollars in interest over the life of a mortgage, for instance. So try to review your report as regularly as possible, but be extra thorough in the months leading up to a loan or credit card application.

Ask the Experts: The Best Credit Reports in Life Are Free

Fortunately, it’s pretty easy to get a free credit report these days. But we could all stand to make some improvements in terms of how often we check and what we do with the information. So WalletHub convened a panel of personal finance experts for some tips and insights. Below, you can see who they are, what we asked them and how they recommend getting more from your free credit reports.

1. Do you think the average person knows how to get a free credit report?
2. Considering that credit reports are free, why don't people check them more often?
3. When you get your free credit report, what's the most important thing to do next?
4. Should people only get their credit reports from AnnualCreditReport.com?
5. What are the downsides of checking your credit report no more than three times per year?

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