How many times have you seen that catchy commercial with the nerdy band that sings "Free Credit Report.com tell someone tell your Dad tell your Mom..." Then something about a Pirate? Probably more than you could count, right? How many times have you tried to log on to this website to get your "Free" credit report only to find out they want you to PAY for it?
Hopefully you haven't. This is one of the many scammer sites that tries to get you to sign up for credit monitoring for a monthly fee. If you are paying your bills on time, you don't need credit monitoring - more on that later. Do you want a truly FREE credit report?
Hopefully you haven't. This is one of the many scammer sites that tries to get you to sign up for credit monitoring for a monthly fee. If you are paying your bills on time, you don't need credit monitoring - more on that later. Do you want a truly FREE credit report?
The address you should be going to is
The Federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) mandates that all consumers be entitled to a free report once per year. The REPORT itself is free, you can get view your generic risk scores for about $7.00 per bureau.
What is a generic risk score? It means that your score is not analyzed for a certain type of loan or credit account. This score from Annualcreditreport.com will be different than something I would pull for a mortgage line of credit or a car dealer would pull for a car loan. Specialized types of credit have a specific matrix that analyzes the risk for that particular type of loan.
If you do feel that your credit card has been lost, stolen or misused you are only liable for $50 of unauthorized use by Federal Law.
For more information on what to do in the case of misuse of your card
Please check out this link to the Federal Trade Commission's website.
By checking your credit report you can see if you have old collections, tax or mechanical liens and charge offs that can lower your credit score. You can contact these companies and negotiate a way to settle the balance to improve your credit.
If you do receive your credit report and are confused about what it means or how to improve it. Please call or email me and we can walk through it together! LEvans@WesternOhioMortgage.com
