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Society > Crime > Identity Theft > Preventing Identity Theft > How to Get Your Free Credit Report
How to Get Your Free Credit Report
Submitted 2005-12-12 09:43:48 by psiolent
Rating: 0 (0 votes) | 602 Views
Section: Preventing Identity Theft
We talk a lot about watching your credit report and getting it once a year to make sure everything is OK. I thought it would be a good idea to provide a little information on how to do this.
1. Find a website that will contact the three main credit reporting agencies for you. I recently went through this process using this website: AnnualCreditReport.com. I've not tried any other sites, but this one worked for me.
2. This site will likely gather important information from you before sending you to each of the credit reporting agencies. This means you don't have to enter this info 3 times, nor do you have to try to figure out where to enter it on each of the three reporting agencies' sites.
3. Each site will ask you some private information to verify your identity. This could be things like mortgage account numbers, names of companies who issued you lines of credit, and your mortgage payment amount. Be sure you are in a place where you can access this information, such as your house.
4. You can get all three free credit reports at once, or spread them out through the year. There are advantages and disadvantages to each method. If you get them all at once, you can verify the information matches. If you spread them throughout the year (e.g. get one from each company every 4 months) you can watch to make sure nothing changes that shouldn't. Personally, I got all three the first time I did the report, then after a year I started staggering them.
It took me about 20 minutes to get and print through all three free credit reports. It really isn't a difficult or time consuming process and it doesn't cost a thing. Get your free credit report now and make sure your identity is protected. |
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