Credit reports provide information about your financial history, which provides you with a picture of your financial health. You require strong financial health to obtain loans and determine how much you will pay to borrow money. Your primary resources for your credit history are the three nationwide consumer reporting companies.
Credit Bureaus
You credit history is recorded by a credit bureau. The three major companies in the United States are Experian, Equifax and TransUnion. However, the Federal Trade Commission advises to not contact any of these three companies to access your credit score. These three companies get information culled from various sources, so your information -- thus your credit score -- can vary.
Online
The three credit reporting agencies created a central website to make it easy for Americans to get a copy of their credit report -- AnnualCreditReport.com (see Resources). You can call or write to request a copy of your credit report, and you can choose from which company you would like a copy of your report. You are entitled to one report from each agency every 12 months, so you should order a report every few months -- each time from a different agency -- to keep up to date on your credit report and score.
Imposters
There is only one online resource to get your credit report and that is from AnnualCreditReport.com. The FTC warns anyone who sees websites claiming to offer a free credit report or credit scores to exercise caution, as only AnnualCreditReport.com is legally mandated to offer a free report. Since you provide your name, address, Social Security number and date of birth, these are valuable tools to fraudsters. Some sites may be legit, however, the FTC warns that strings could be attached and may not actually be free in the end after you sign up for one.
Fair Credit Reporting Act
Credit reports are regulated by the FTC, which oversees the Fair Credit Reporting Act. It is designed to ensure that credit reporting is accurate and provides an accurate measure of creditworthiness. The Fair Credit Reporting Act allows anyone to access any information a reporting agency has about them. Agencies are required to disclose the sources of the information contained in the report when requested, once every 12 months.
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