Here’s How To Get Your Free Credit Report (Step-By-Step)
If you’re interested in obtaining a free copy of your credit report, you’ll need to create an account and supply some personal information to one or two websites, but we’ll help you through the process.
We propose two distinct services to obtain a free credit report.
AnnualCreditReport.com. Each year, you may obtain one copy of your credit report from Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. Although the website is not the most user-friendly, it is real.
Credit Score. This user-friendly website does not provide access to your Experian report. This tutorial will mostly focus on how to utilize AnnualCreditReport.com, but we will also briefly discuss Credit Karma.
It’s easy to obtain your free credit reports from AnnualCreditReport.com:
AnnualCreditReport.com requests certain personal information.
Choose if you want credit reports from all three bureaus, only one or two, or none.
Confirm further personal data with the credit bureau.
Obtaining a copy of your credit report is a vital step in the process of credit rehabilitation.
Let’s get started, shall we?
How to obtain a free credit report from AnnualCreditReport.com
Did you know you have the right to one free credit report from each of the three major credit agencies each year?
This is a result of the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACTA) of 2003, which was enacted in part to keep you aware of what lenders see and to combat credit fraud and identity theft by allowing you to see lines of credit that you may not have established.
Using AnnualCreditReport.com is the most efficient method for obtaining a free credit report. Let’s work through it step by step together.
Fill in your personal information in the first step
AnnualCreditReport.com must validate your identification before releasing your credit reports, thus the first step is to visit this registration page and provide your personal information, which appears as follows:
Step 2: Choose whether you want all of your credit reports at this time, or just one or two.
AnnualCreditReport allows you to obtain a free credit report from any or all of the three major credit agencies.
Remember that you receive one free report year from TransUnion, Equifax, and Experian. However, you are not required to remove all three at once.
You may distribute them throughout the year, as does Scott Henderson.
Scott informed us that he had set a reminder to check his credit report on January 1 with TransUnion, May 1 with Equifax, and September 1 with Experian.
So, should you pull them all at once, or should you spread them out?
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If you’re preparing to make a large buy, such as a vehicle or a house, you should pull all three reports at the same time. This is because you’ll want to ensure that all three are correct before you get a loan or interest rate quotation.
If you don’t have a large purchase coming up, it’s definitely a smart idea to space out your purchases; this will allow you to monitor your reports throughout the year.
Therefore, make your selection and click “Next.”
Step 3: Confirm your personal data with a credit bureau.
On the following page, you must verify further personal information with the credit bureau you selected earlier.
Here, I am prompted to verify my information with TransUnion.
Step 4: View your credit report and save it!
On the next page, you can get free access to your credit report! Woo-hoo!
Important: Save your report as a PDF so that you may examine it later and save it for the remainder of the year. If you leave this page without storing your report, it may be impossible to retrieve it.
You can see where you have the choice to “Save as PDF” in the image below:
We recommend storing it to Google Drive, Dropbox, or another safe cloud storage service. Thus, you will always have access to it when necessary.
Wasn’t that simple?
Step 5: Proceed to the following credit report
If you chose to obtain a free report from two or three credit agencies, you can click the red button displayed below to go to the next report.
In the preceding example, I had previously obtained my TransUnion report, and now I must confirm more personal information in order to obtain my Equifax and Experian reports.
After that, I am entitled to a free credit report from each bureau.
How many free credit reports are available annually?
FACTA ensures that you are entitled to one free credit report per year from Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion.
However, in the following instances, you are entitled to a supplementary report:
- If you are jobless but plan to seek for employment within the next 60 days, you are eligible.
- If you are receiving assistance, you must pay taxes
- If you think that you are a victim of credit card fraud,
- If you’ve been denied credit or given risk-based loan conditions
Let’s discuss the final one in greater detail.
When you are denied credit, the lender is obligated to give you a letter detailing the deciding criteria, as well as the contact information for the credit bureau from whom they obtained your information. Then you may call to have a free report mailed to you.
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Receiving free credit reports through Credit Karma
AnnualCreditReport.com is the best way to acquire your credit reports for free, but we wanted to highlight Credit Karma because they provide a few other features in addition to the reports, such as the ability to check your reports at any time, not just once per year.
Credit Karma will provide you with free reports from TransUnion and Equifax, but not Experian.
Registering with Credit Karma
To create a free Credit Karma account, click on the link provided and follow the instructions.
After filling up basic personal information and authenticating your identification (remember, these websites want to ensure you are who you say you are before providing critical information), you are shown your dashboard.
Credit Karma dashboard
My dashboard, which displays my VantageScore (essentially a rival to the FICO score) from both TransUnion and Equifax, is as follows:
When you click on your TransUnion score, you are redirected to a separate page that displays a snapshot of your VantageScore for the past four months. In addition, you have the opportunity to shift between your TransUnion and Equifax credit reports and to see your real credit report.
Obtaining a copy of your credit report
When you click on the “Credit Report” link, your free credit report is shown!
We also recommend printing your report as a PDF from this page.
And that concludes the discussion!
