Where To Get Your Free Credit Report Online

You’ve seen the commercials, urging you to “Get your free credit report today!”

Although these are advertisements and not public service announcements, I encourage readers to, indeed, review your credit report for free online.

Recently, I checked mine out, assuming I’d find nothing but on-time payments and business as usual. However, I was devastated to discover a charge from a credit agency of $70. It was tearing my credit score apart. I did not recognize the company or the charge, nor had I received any type of notices or information from them about this alleged outstanding balance.

I followed the dispute process to have it removed, as I encourage readers to do if they feel there is unfair information on your report.

You can check out your credit online at www.annualcreditreport.com. The law provides one free credit report annually. However, this is for each of the three major credit agencies. You can consider checking your report every four months, as long as you do so through a different reporting agency (but make sure you keep track of it).

Be cautious, however, of sites that want you to purchase your credit score. More importantly, review the information on your report to find any errors or omissions (as I did) that affect your golden score.