Free Credit Report or is It?
A Credit Article Contributed by Mistie Cauley
Get a Free Copy of Your Credit Report Online
Look online in any search engine you may choose for a free copy of your credit report, and there will be hundreds available. You can click on one of many web sites that offer a free copy of your very own personal credit report. You can even download the report right to your computer for easier viewing and printing. Is it really that easy to get a free copy of your report?
Well, if you get on to the web site, you may see that you have to sign up for a trial period of a check monitoring service before you can receive your credit report. If you then do not want to continue with this service, you may cancel with in the trial period. What happens if you forget that you signed up for this service and you start getting charged for the usage.
Well, there is nothing you can do about it and you can cancel, but you will still have to pay for that month and may be the next month as well.
How Can They Say Free Credit Report
How can the web sites say, "Get your Free Credit Report here"? Well, your guess is as good as mine on that question. I do know that if you are charged for signing up for a check monitoring service, then your credit report was not free at all. Now was it? The many web sites that offer free credit reports can just not make all the correct information available to begin with.
They can then as you are seriously interested say you have to sign up with our check monitoring service to get your credit report. If you do not sign up for the service, then you will not receive a copy of your credit report from that company or web site.
How Do You Really Get a Free Copy of Your Credit Report?
There is a way to actually get a free copy of your credit report. If a bank has requested a copy of you report the credit bureau may send you a letter stating just that. Then at the bottom of the letter the bureau will offer to you a copy of that report if you send a written letter back to them requesting your free copy. The catch you may only have thirty days. So get on it and write that letter.
Starting in December 2004 the Federal Trade Commission is going to make a free copy of your credit report available to you once a year. This will make the whole process a little easier for us all. You can get the free report, for free, and be able to check your personal report for errors on a yearly basis. Free is free and we all like free. The Federal Trade Commission should have been giving us a free copy of our credit reports this whole time I say.
