A new year has begun. Now is the perfect time to look at your credit report to make sure the information reported on it is correct. You can get a free copy of your report from any agency responsible for the decision to deny credit. A better option is to go to annualcreditreport.com. At annualcreditreport.com you can order a credit report from each reporting agency for free each year.
There are many catchy commercials on TV advertising free credit reports. While the commercials are clever, the credit reports aren’t exactly free. You will get a free report, but if you don’t contact the company within a specified short time period, you’ll get charged a fee for membership. It’s not worth it.
Even when you’re armed with your credit report, how do you learn your score? The scores you can pay for online are not accurate. They’re in the ballpark, but you don’t know how far off the score is or in which direction it’s off. Years ago there was a website where you could get your score for free. I don’t remember the site and you could get your score only once. The score wasn’t accurate, but it was within shouting distance so you had some idea.
This year consumers will have access to their credit scores. This will help in many ways because so many decisions are based on a person’s credit score. On January 1 lenders had to alert consumers if they were getting less favorable loans based on their credit scores. Consumers will then have access to their scores to make the changes necessary to improve it. In July more organizations, like utilities and credit cards, will start to provide the same information.
I don’t know what this means for those consumers who are getting favorable rates, yet still want to know.