Financial Fitness Tip: How to Request your Free Credit Reports

Here is a financial tip from Solid Ground’s Financial Fitness Boot Camp. Solid Ground’s ConnectUp will be broadcasting financial fitness tips like this once a month from now on.

A credit report includes information on where you live, how you pay your bills, and whether you’ve been sued or have filed for bankruptcy.

Visit annualcreditreport.com to request your free annual credit reports from each of three agencies, Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. There are unique benefits to each agency but if you are not planning on a big purchase or loan you can stagger your requests to allow you to stay updated throughout the entire year. 

To ensure you are getting free credit reports, be sure you use annualcreditreport.com.  There are many similar websites that claim to offer free credit reports; however, some ask for your credit or debit card information as well as private information that can used for fraudulent purposes.

After confirming your identity with a few questions you can look at your report online. If for some reason you cannot pull your free annual credit report, you can download their request form, fill it out, and mail the form to Annual Credit Request Form’s office; it takes approximately two-to-three weeks to receive your credit reports.

This will allow you to see any errors that you might need to dispute. If you find something wrong with your credit report, dispute it. Be on the lookout for loans or credit cards listed that you never opened, misspelled names, or collection items that were not updated. help.consumerfinance.gov/app/creditreporting/ask

Knowing your credit report inside and out is important! Your credit report can be used to evaluate your applications for credit, insurance, employment, or renting a place to live. Good credit is necessary if you plan to use credit to make major purchases like a car or a home or want to be able to take advantage of the convenience credit can provide.

Overwhelmed? We would like to invite you all to call Solid Ground’s Financial Fitness Boot Camp at either (206) 694- 6864 or e-mail us at: financialfitness@solid-ground.org and make an appointment to come and see one of our financial counselors.  They provide Credit Counseling to help you find out what’s in your credit report and what it all means, how to understand you credit score, how to improve your credit standing and how to develop credit for your future.