Credit Report
 

Is there anywhere that I can get a FREE credit report? I'm not looking to sign up for a free 30-day trial on some web site & if it has to be from a web site I shouldn't have to put in my social security number. I don't mind if I have to go somewhere locally. Can anyone help?

Re: Credit Report
 

Plenty of places. I get tons of spam offering free credit reports. Of course, they turn around and sell your credit history to people, but it doesn't cost you anything.

I follow up on most of the spam that I get for free credit reports online & they always make you sign up for "free" trials and/or require your social security number.

You can't get an accurate reading of your credit report with out your social security number. All your credit is linked to you via that one number. If they run it by name and address it can pull up an awful lot of information, plus if some one ever spelled your name wrong then it won't cue that either. I honestly believe that you best bet is to call one of your credit card companies and have then do it for you. Remember that every time it is run there is a ding. Over course one won't harm you but just keep it in mind. When I worked at a car dealership and we would run credit it was scary to see how many places people would let run their credit. Sometimes there would 6 or 7 car dealers in a couple of days. Makes people question as to credit worthiness because of so many hits.

I don't understand how that works.

It looks bad if I have too many credit checks? I thought some people would check their credit once a year or so?

I was only curious because I just wanted to see what was on my credit report. The only other places that have checked my credit were my cell phone company the first time I joined & the apartment complex where I applied for an apartment.

And I don't mind to give my social security number if its to a company I trust, but to an online email spam company? Forget it!

My boyfriend worked at Cingular and he told me that the credit checks usually don't show up after 6 months or so. I don't know if this is true though.
He also told me that he was getting his limit increased on his credit cards and when he went to get a new one they denied him because all the other card companies had run checks before increasing the limit. I'm not sure why checks look bad though. I guess because you're trying to apply for too much credit...? I would think that just not paying bills, etc would look bad.

Check with your bank. I know you said you weren't interested in any 30-day trial things, but I got an offer from my bank itself that they'd give you a free credit report if you signed up for a 30-day trial of their overdraft program. I got the report (they already have all the information, so I didn't have to give anything out) and cancelled the overdraft protection.

I'm glad I did. My credit was actually better than I suspected (a nice suprise :D ) but I didn't realize that I was listed on my parents credit card for my wedding, which was bringing down my rating quite a bit. Now I know to have myself removed after the wedding to improve it even more!

Just spend $14 on a credit report from Myfico.com as that is the Equifax Credit Reporting Agency website. This gets your credit report, an explanation of the positives&negatives as well as your FICO score which is what most financial institutions use.

This is one of the best ideas to do b/c you can trust that the website is secure and it won't ding your score since you're pulling it yourself.

Having car dealers run your report a few times within a short amount of time doesn't hurt as bad as having it checked monthly. It doesn't hurt your score having a credit card checking out your report on their own, only if you are applying for credit from them.

A good place to learn about credit information is Bayhouse.com


Just my $.0198746 worth
Mark

Checking your own credit will not hurt your score, other people checking your score will. - per that Suze Orman show. It's actually a pretty informative show, I happened across it one weekend.