Your Credit File Contains History Of Your Financial Life
Your credit report is an electronic file that contains data about your financial accounts. This would include mortgages, credit cards, and any other types of loans.
Checking on your credit report regularly is important to make sure that information contained therein is as accurate as possible. Each time you want to get a loan, the FICO scores which the lenders use is based on the information in the credit file. If the information in your file is inaccurate, it may cost you dearly! For example, people with marginal scores are often always charges a higher interest rate on any money borrowed. Bad information on your files will also not help you if you want to rent accomodation. Some employers also look at your credit as part of the hire process.
Where To Get Your Credit Files… For Free
There are many sources from which to get your credit report. A lot of these services are very good but they also cost money. In order to get started, I recommend that you look at the free sources first and then perhaps enroll in a service which provide you alerts each time the information on your credit file changes, whether positively or negatively.
Each one of the three credit bureaus, which by the way are private companies, are by-law required to provide each consumer their own report once per year free of charge. The quickest and safest way to get your free credit report is through AnnualCreditReport.com or call (877)-322-8228. You can order reports from all three of the bureaus, Experian, Trans Union, and Equifax from this site.
If you have already order the free resource, above, or you want t additional services then I highly recommend this FREE credit score and more!
There Is Other Information Too…
OK, so your credit files contain financial history of your life basically. But what about other data such as medical information, accommodation history, insurance policies and claims etc. There are services, again through private companies, from which you get this information. It’s pretty scary just how much personal information is available at a relatively low cost. I’ll cover some of these other sources in a follow-up article.
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