How to Get a Free FICO Credit Score

Obtaining your credit report helps you determine what areas need attention to improve your credit score, such as paying off a debt or making payments on time. You can also check for errors in the report, and make sure that no one is committing credit fraud by using your personal information. Several companies and websites offer free credit score reports if you sign up for a free trial of their service, and FICO is one of those corporations.

Instructions

Obtaining Your Free Credit Score through FICO

1

Visit the myFICO website (see the Resources link) to sign up for Score Watch -- a credit-monitoring program. Choose the free trial option and click on the "Subscribe Now" button. Follow the prompts to sign up for the Score Watch free trial. Note that you are signing up for a 30-day free trial of FICO's Score Watch to obtain your free credit score report. Upon the expiration of the 30-day trial, FICO charges an annual fee of about $90 to the credit card number you provided to maintain your Score Watch account. If you don't wish to pay the annual fee, you must cancel your account before the 30-day trial expires. FICO will send you a reminder email one week before your trial expires.

2

Make sure the web pages that require personal information are secure before providing any details. A page is secure only when it has "https://" at the beginning of the page URL and a little yellow padlock in the bottom right side of the browser.

3

Follow the prompts to set up your Score Watch profile after your receive confirmation of your free trial subscription. During setup, you will set a target credit score that Score Watch then guides you through achieving. You can also set up email and mobile alerts.

4

Obtain more information and details on your FICO credit score by accessing your Score Power Reports. You will find tabs on your FICO credit score, and tabs for your credit report to look at further credit details.

Obtaining a Free Credit Score by Other Means

5

Request free credit reports from all three credit-reporting agencies annually through AnnualCreditReport.com. You can request reports through the website form, by telephone toll-free at 877-322-8228, or by downloading the mail-in request form and sending it to the office in Georgia. Requests by phone or mail may take up to 15 days to process and up to 3 weeks for you to receive. You can only request reports through this website once a year, but are entitled to the credit reports without hooks or gimmicks by federal law. While these free reports will not provide your actual credit score, they will provide enough detail on your credit history that you can get an idea what your credit score might be.

6

Visit Credit Karma (see the Resource link) to obtain a free credit score. Credit Karma does not require a credit card number or a 30-day trial to provide you with your credit score. To offset the cost of providing credit scores, Credit Karma sells advertisements on its website.

7

Sign up for a free seven-day trial of Triple Advantage, Experian's credit-monitoring program, and receive a free credit score. If you do not cancel your subscription to Triple Advantage within the seven-day period, then monthly charges of $14.95 will appear on your credit card bill until you cancel the service. The other two credit bureaus have similar programs with similar pricing--TransUnion's program is called 3 Bureau Credit Monitoring, while Equifax offers Credit Watch.