If you have tried to access your credit reports recently, you may have wondered why you have so many options. It gets even more confusing if you would like to get your credit scores as well.
Some offers sound as if they have what you need, but when you look close, you see that they provide information from only one of the credit bureaus. Through trial and error, I have figured out a great method to get my credit report for all agencies, with scores.
When you know that you need both reports and scores from each of the three major credit bureaus, finding all of this, and for no charge, can be tricky. There is a way to get just what you need, and without paying for it, but you will have to sign up for a trial offer with a credit monitoring service. Do a search online for any term, such as "mycreditreport", and you will see your options. These companies offer a 3-in-1 report as an incentive to get you to try out their services. You may even like their offering, but for now, I will simply show you how to use it to get what you need.
All you do is sign up for their offer, download your free credit file, and then cancel your subscription. To avoid getting charged by mistake, you may want to cancel as soon as you get your credit files. If you want to check out their services, then you can use them for the period of the trial offer, as most allow you access even after you cancel for the length of the trial offer, which is usually about two weeks.
Try not to pay too much attention to the names of the companies, as most are nothing more than a catchy name used to attract customers. Most of these services are actually owned by one of the big three credit reporting agencies. Your objective is to get three credit reports and three credit scores, and where you get them does not matter. As long as this information is available free, then you are covered. Never agree to pay anything upfront, and if you are asked, this is a warning that you need to move on to another offer. Unless of course you want to pay for your files, then I suggest you go directly to one of the big three and expect to pay about $30 for a complete report with scores.
Beware of services that only offer simulated credit scores, which are different from those generated by the actual agencies. A simulated score will be close to your actual scores, but since you can get all three scores, I suggest you hold out for the real thing. If there were not so many sources that offered all of this free, I would say to take what you can find. But, we have multiple options from numerous services willing to give us all we need if we sign up to check out their services.
Just follow my advice and do a search for any term, such as "mycreditreport", then find your free offers. Plus, you still have the government option that allows you access to your reports once each year, but you get no scores using this service. If you are going to take the time to access and review your files, at least get your scores free while you are at it.
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