Credit Scoring

Find A Credit Report

Alright so you need to find your credit report, and of course you don't want to pay anything for it at all. Well you are in luck, there is a couple of ways that you can get your credit report from all three of the credit reporting agencies - Experian, Equifax and Trans Union. You can only request a free credit report once a year. So if you request in June of 2007, then you can not request it earlier than June of 2008.

You can also get a free credit report if you are unemployed and seeking employment within sixty days, are on some type of public assistance, or if you are claiming fraudulent actions or identity theft, you are entitled a free copy of your credit report information.

What you need to do is visit each of those agencies website and download the correct form to request your free credit report. You can find the link to download the form on the home pages of each of them.

Once you download the form you will need to find the correct address to mail it to, and once you mail it all you do is wait to receive it, usually it takes a couple of weeks.

You can find online that there are websites that offer you a credit report for free, but I do not suggest that you find your credit report this way. Yes you will have instant access to it, but it is not a safe way to view it. Besides that you will not have complete access to everything on your report, such as account numbers or the number of inquires that were made.

If there is negative information on your credit report that is accurate there is not much you can do, but wait seven years for it to be removed. This is going to be seven years from the last date that the account was accessed.

If there is negative information on your report that is inaccurate then you can dispute them. What you are going to do write a letter or request a dispute form from the credit reporting agencies. Then put together some supporting documentation if you have any and send all of these documents to the credit reporting agencies via certified mail. This will help you keep track of the date that they received the information. Now they have 30 days to investigate the claim to find out if it is accurate or inaccurate. You will receive notice of their finding through mail. If they found the item to be accurate nothing further will be done, if they find the item to be inaccurate they will send you an updated credit report.