Saturday, December 31, 2011

Why You Need to Order All Three of Your Credit Reports for Credit Repair

You have three credit reports, compiled by three separate credit bureaus. Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian are all separate businesses. Each one gathers its own data and compiles its own credit reports. In theory, your credit reports at all three bureaus should be the same if they're all reporting the data accurately. In reality, there can be differences caused by mistakes and other factors. One of your credit reports might show you have an excellent credit rating, while the others might show mediocre or even bad credit because they contain inaccurate information.

Fortunately, the Fair Credit Reporting Act, or FCRA, gives you the right to one free credit report per year from all three credit bureaus, as long as you order your free annual credit reports from the www.freeannualcreditreport.com website. Ordering free credit reports from any other website means you'll either have to pay for them or sign up for some type of product or service to get them.

Get all three of your credit reports when you're doing free credit repair for yourself. You need to fix bad credit on all three reports. Otherwise, you never know which credit report a lender will pull when you fill out an application. If you have one report with negative items, it can get you denied.

You don't need to pay anyone to repair bad credit for you. You can fix bad credit yourself very easily and get results within 60 days. If you're not familiar with the process, my $2.99 Kindle eBook gives you all the steps you'll need to fix bad credit. It's free if you're an Amazon Prime member. Click here to go to Amazon and read an excerpt from the book, which gives you four simple steps for free credit repair.

Friday, December 30, 2011

Are Free Credit Reports Really Free?

If you believe TV ads, getting a free credit report is as simple as visiting a website. Actually it is, but not through the websites plugged on TV. Those sites lure you in, and they do give you free credit reports, but only if you sign up for credit-related services like credit report monitoring, identity theft protection, or something else that adds monthly charges to your credit card. This practice is so common that the Federal Trade Commission made its own commercials to offset the free credit report ads. The FTC ads explain that the only real free credit report site, with no catches, is www.annualcreditreport.com. You can see one of the ads below:



The www.annualcreditreport.com website provides the free credit reports mandated by federal law. The three credit bureaus (Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax) are legally obligated to give you free credit report copies every year, and www.annualcreditreport.com is the place to get them. You can't get your free credit reports directly from the credit bureau websites.

Why should you get your free credit reports every year? They're essential for doing free credit repair. You don't need to pay anyone to repair bad credit for you. You can fix bad credit yourself very easily and get results within 60 days. If you're not familiar with the process, my $2.99 Kindle eBook gives you all the steps you'll need to fix bad credit. It's free if you're an Amazon Prime member. Click here to go to Amazon and read an excerpt from the book, which gives you four simple steps for free credit repair.

You can't erase bad credit from your records completely, but you can often get rid of quite a few negative items if you use your free credit reports and smart dispute tactics like those discussed in my book.