Free Annual Credit Report

A recent change to the FCRA says that the three consumer reporting agencies are required to provide you with a copy of your free annual credit report once every year.

However, one thing that the FCRA does not provide is a copy of your credit score, or FICO score, which is what major lenders and banks look at when evaluating your credit worthiness. The government’s site at annualcreditreport.com allows you to purchase your FICO score from each of the three credit reporting agencies through them or by contacting them individually. Either way you are paying a fee in order to obtain each reporting agency’s valuation of your credit score.

What the website annualcreditreport.com does not let you know is that you are allowed to get a copy of your free annual credit score from each of the three agencies when you order your free credit report through them. You get this by ordering one of the programs that they offer such as an identity theft or credit monitoring service.

If you don’t like the service that you apply for when getting your free annual credit score, you can simply cancel within the 30 day trial period that they provide. Thus you are essentially getting your credit score, something that the annualcreditreport site charges you for, absolutely free! As long as you cancel the trial service within the 30 day period, you will not be charged any fees.