Free Credit Reports For All Americans |
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Did anyone tell you about a free credit report or did you try yourself to learn what it's it all about? If not, it's time for you to know about a free credit report. A credit report contains information about your credit activities. Your past payment habits, your credit rating, the amount of outstanding debt-all can be trace in your credit report. Your credit report can have a dramatic impact on your financial stability. With good credit, you can obtain benefits of all kinds-a home mortgage or lease on an apartment, an auto loan, low-interest credit cards, and more-with ease. But if your credit history is poor, many of these financial options may be unavailable to you. Even though you are eligible for a bad credit personal loan, you might have to pay very high interest rate. That's why most Americans are applying for a free credit report from any of the three national credit bureaus, Experian, Equifax and TransUnion. A recent amendment to the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) has made it mandatory for the national credit-reporting agencies to provide you with a free copy of your credit report, at your request, once every 12 months. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the nation's consumer protection agency, enforces the FCRA with respect to credit-reporting agencies. The FCRA promotes the accuracy and privacy of information in the files of the national credit-reporting agencies. In fact, the agencies take extreme care to save your free credit report from any kind of identity theft. As more cases of identity theft have been registered, more security and privacy is also given to your credit report. Basically, there are three ways to request your free credit report. First, you can log onto annualcreditreport.com, which is the only authorized source for consumers to access their free credit report online. Second, you can call on 877-322-8228. And third, you can fill out the form on the back of the Annual Credit Report Request brochure, and mail it to: Annual Credit Report Request Service, P.O. Box 105281, Atlanta, GA, 30348-5281. To apply for your free credit report, you need to provide some personal information. These include: your name, your address, social security numbers, date of birth, your spouse's name etc. If you have moved in the last two years, you may have to provide your previous address also. Besides, the credit-reporting agencies may ask you other information like your current monthly mortgage payment to confirm your identity. No doubt, the Fair Credit Reporting Act entitles you to view your free credit report, once every 12 months, but you can check your report every 4 months also. It's a better option for you because you would be able to notice how your credit report is changing over time and if there is any mistake in it. And if you find any kind of mistake, you should inform the agency as soon as possible. If you don't pay attention to correct the mistakes it may lower down your credit score drastically and as a result you may not be able to qualify for a loan or mortgage. Besides, an erroneous report always brings a lot of threats for you such as, if you have an error in your name, another person may get your report and as a result it may cause a lot of confusion. America has the most efficient, easily used measures against incorrect reporting. It also has carefully enforced laws against improper use of the credit bureau report. Besides, a number of free credit report services are coming up for the people. Those in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin can take a peek beginning March 1, 2005. On June 1, 2005, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas will be able to log on and take a look. The rest have to wait until September1, 2005. |
