If you want to look at your credit report from the three main reporting agencies — Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion — you can now do so by visiting this website: http://www.annualcreditreport.com/
You will need to follow the instructions carefully, making sure that you don’t click, check mark, or otherwise accept anything for a fee unless you really want to purchase it though. For example, the reporting agencies will NOT give you your actual credit score for free, as they consider that a proprietary calculation that the agency will charge for showing it to you.
They will also try to sell other services, ranging from credit alerts to credit monitoring to identity theft protection, so you will need to just click the ‘No, thanks’ button, if you simply want your free credit reports — and that is all.
You may do this on an annual basis, and it’s a really good idea to do so because errors can cause your credit score and report to be incorrect, which may cost you in additional interest, especially over the lifetime of one or more loans. So, when you print out your report, check for errors. If you find an error, you’ll need to follow the instructions to fix the error with the reporting agency. Those instructions will print along with your credit information, so be sure to keep everything together.
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