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Free Credit Reports & Fair Credit Reporting Act

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The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) requires each of the 3 major credit bureaus, Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion to provide you with a free copy of your credit report each year. The law required that they cooperatively setup and maintain a web site to request these reports. Beware of television ads and misleading web sites that claim to give you a free credit report and then bait-n-switch you to a paid report. There is only one official web site where you can request the free report. It's a good idea to read this page on the Federal Trade Commission web site: Your Access to Free Credit Reports and follow their link to the official site.

Note that your credit report is separate from your credit score. The Fair Credit Reporting Act could not mandate the bureaus give away the credit score because this is derived from a proprietary algorithm they have independently developed. Your credit score is generated by a computer based on the information found in your credit report. It's a good idea to pay for a 3-in-1 report each year that gives your actual credit score. This score is the single most important factor that lenders use in determining your credit worthiness and interest rate given for loans. Almost all credit decisions are now made by software. This automated underwriting is the reason you can know instantly whether or not you are approved for credit.

Visit myFico.com for a report that gives all three FICO scores.

Resources Fair Credit Reporting Act - Federal Trade Commission

Credit Scores & Credit Reports - How the system really works and what you can do.

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Credit report & score from all 3 National Bureaus

ONLY: $47.85

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User Comments

Interesting article posted here on the deceptive advertising or Experians freecreditreport.com site. MSN Article

Posted by Jay Andersen on 11/16/06, 04:19 PM

When you request a free credit report it doesn't give you a credit score. To get that you have to pay. Kinda lame.

Posted by Aug on 8/18/06, 12:13 PM

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