How Can I Get My Credit Scores Without the Credit Monitoring?

Getting access your credit score can give you an idea of where you stand with borrowers and how much you need to improve before applying for a loan. When you get online and start to try to get your credit score, you may find many offers that include your credit score with a credit monitoring service. If you do not want the credit monitoring service, you can still get your score.

Free Credit Reports

According to federal laws, you are eligible to receive a copy of your credit report from each of the three major credit bureaus every year for free. You can get a copy of your credit report without paying for credit monitoring or anything else. The problem with this free credit report is that you cannot see your credit score. The credit score is calculated off of the information in your credit report, so you will have an idea of whether it is good or bad, but you will not know the exact score.

Credit Monitoring Offers

On many of the websites that offer access to your credit score, you also have to sign up for a credit monitoring service. For example, you might get access to your credit score but you have to enroll in a credit monitoring service that charges you $20 per month. You might get a free trial period in the credit monitoring service and you can cancel at anytime. While this will give you access to your credit score, you have to go through the trouble of canceling the credit monitoring service.

Buy Credit Score

Although you cannot get your credit score with a copy of your free credit report, you can buy a copy of your report with your score attached. You can buy the score directly from the credit bureaus or you can go to the Fair Isaac website. For example, you can buy a copy of one of your credit reports from FICO that includes your credit score for a one-time fee. When you do this, you do not have to worry about being signed up for credit monitoring.

Considerations

Although a credit monitoring service may not seem like something you want to get involved with, it can sometimes be cheaper to go that route. When reviewing the terms of the offer, check out the price and exactly what you get. In some cases, you may be able to gain access to all three of your credit reports and scores for a cheaper price than what you can pay for a one-time look at your credit reports. Then you could cancel the monitoring service.