Credit Report - Check Yours Regularly - and for Free

In the twenty-first century, there are few written documents that have got a greater impact on the lives of Americans then their credit report. Credit evaluation determines one’s ability to purchase a home, a car, or to obtain a credit card or a job. Since these things are important, it is equally of import that the information be accurate. The lone manner to be certain of that is to check the report regularly. Prior to last fall, there were two ways to obtain a transcript of your credit report: to pay for one, or to obtain one for free after being denied credit. Thanks to the Carnival Credit Reporting Act passed last year, Americans can now obtain a free transcript of their credit report from each of the three credit reporting agencies once a year.

Due to awaited heavy response to the offer of free credit reports, the programme have been rolled out in stages. People living in the Occident and Middle West are already eligible to apply for a transcript of their report at www.annualcreditreport.com. As of June 1, 2005, those life in the Southeast are now eligible, and on September 1, 2005, those life in the Northeast will be eligible. All that is required to have a transcript of your credit report is to reply a few simple questions. Since it only takes a few proceedings to do, there is really no ground to set off checking your credit report, and you may profit tremendously by doing so.

The credit score is a single, three figure number that stands for an individual’s credit worthiness, and that score is obtained through a complex expression that takes into consideration a person’s borrowing and disbursement wonts and payment history. A high score do individual more eligible for loans and credit, while a lower score may bespeak that a person is a hazard to repay. While the information contained on a credit report is generally accurate, wrong information sometimes demoes up on credit reports, and wrong information could ensue in person who beingness denied a loan for which they might otherwise be qualified. Furthermore, a credit report check is the best manner to determine if you have got been the victim of identity theft, an increasingly popular law-breaking that often travels unnoticed for a twelvemonth or more. If your identity is stolen, your credit evaluation can be ruined and you can be burdened with thousands of dollars in debt. The new bankruptcy law, which travels into consequence in October 2005, pulls no differentiations between debt incurred by an individual and debt incurred through identity theft. This alone should be ground enough to check your credit report regularly.

Since the law now allows people to obtain one free report per agency per year, anyone who desires to maintain a stopping point oculus on their credit report can obtain a free report as often as every four months. Since the credit report impacts your life in so many of import ways, checking it regularly should go a habit.