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Free Annual Credit Report - What you actually get for free...

Ok, I think we all know that residents of all 50 US states are now eligible for one free credit report per year, from each of the 3 big credit reporting agencies (Equifax, Experian and TransUnion), at a central location (www.annualcreditreport.com) but do you know how that offer compares to the other free credit report offers? That's exactly what I'd like to touch on with this article...

AnnualCreditReport.com-

This site requires you to enter your personal information such as full name, date of birth, social security number, current address, and previous address if you've lived at your current address for less than 2 years. I'm sure some these required fields is part their effort to ensure that this is YOU accessing your own credit report, and not someone else trying to spy on your credit history.

Anyway, moving forward, after you have entered the required information, if you have told them that you want to view your report from all 3 credit reporting agencies listed above, you will be taken to each site (Experian, Equifax, TransUnion) one at a time, where you are able to view your full credit report for free, from that site. At that point, you may be asked to again confirm your identity by entering the last 4 digits of your social security number, or it could possibly be some other question.

In any event, after you are done with, lets say, viewing your Experian credit report, there is a banner you can click on at the top of the page to return to annualcreditreport.com.

Ok, now you're back at the central hub again, from there you are able to proceed to the next website (lets say next comes Equifax). You click "next" to proceed to Equifaxs website, then view your Equifax credit report - yada yada yada... then when you are finished there, you once again return to annual credit report site once again.

The same cycle continues with TransUnion, I think you get the idea.


A couple questions I have in my mind at this point:

1. What about viewing my credit score? Well, that you will have to pay extra for at each website. There's no free credit score included.

2. Is this easy and useful way to view your credit report from each of the big 3 reporting agencies? Yes, but you only get one free report from each agency, per year. If you want another free "round of credit reports" you have to wait until the following Jan. 1st.

Basically this is just a barebones way to view your credit report from each of the big 3 credit reporting agencies. It doesn't include credit monitoring, or a free credit score, or any other bells and whistles. And you can only do it one time per year. But it's definitely a resource everyone should know about and take advantage of.

FreeCreditReport.com-

This is the one we see on TV - "get your free Experian credit report with a free credit score" type of ad. We've all seen their commercial on TV, or heard them on the radio - right? In order to get your free credit report from them, in addition to the info that the annualcreditreport site requires, at FreeCreditReport.com you also need to enter your credit card info and sign up for a trial month of their credit monitoring service.

To some, this may sound like a "catch". But if you look closer, there are no up front charges, you only get charged $12/month if you CONTINUE to use the credit monitoring service after that 30 DAY TRIAL MONTH.

So basically, you can use the monitoring service for a month for free, if you like it, great! Stick with it. If you don't want the credit monitoring, just call and cancel it before your trial month is up, and you will not be billed. So you walk away with your FREE Experian credit report.

It's true with FreeCreditReport.com, that you don't get your credit report from all three reporting agencies... you only get your Experian credit report. But the kicker with this deal is that you also get a free credit score - hey, now we're talkin!

So even if you end up canceling the credit monitoring service, you still get to keep your free credit report and credit score. And as I mentioned above, the annual credit report site does not offer a free credit score, they make you pay extra for that.

They both have their advantages...

So why not try both? Go get your free credit report AND credit score at FreeCreditReport.com, and then go to the annualcreditreport.com website and get your report from the rest of "the big 3". How can you lose? This way you have your credit report from all three agencies, AND you have your FREE credit score. Plus you can even fiddle around with the credit monitoring service and see how you like it. I say give 'em both a shot!