Free Annual Credit Report

The federal Fair Credit Reporting Act and state credit reporting laws restrict who can access your credit report and how it can be used. Although you can get your Free Annual Credit Report every year, there are a number of different people and entities that can request your credit report. These include:

• Employers
  Employers often use credit reports to conduct background checks of job applicants and to assess current employees for promotions or job reassignments. Before ordering your credit report, employers must first get your written authorization and provide certain disclosures.
  Many employers never look at credit reports. And those that do often will not be concerned about your financial problems. If
  you do have some negative information on your report, you might want to discuss it with the employer before he or she sees the report.

• Government agencies
  Government agencies can request your credit report to determine whether you are eligible for public assistance. They do this to look for
  any hidden income or assets you might have, not to see if you have unpaid bills. The law also allows state and local government officials
  to get reports to help determine whether you can make child support payments.

• Insurance Companies
  Insurance companies can look at your credit report. Usually, they are not interested in your credit history, but instead may ask about your medical history or about any insurance claims you have filed.

• Collection Agencies
  Collection agencies can look at your report when trying to collect an overdue debt from you. They mainly do this to try to locate you
  or find out more about your assets.

• Judgment Creditors
  Judgment creditors are allowed to look at credit reports in order to decide whether to begin collection efforts against you. They can also use reports for skip tracing.

• Potential Creditors
  Creditors are allowed to review your report when you apply for credit. Although this is a broad category, there are some restrictions. For
  a new transaction, you must have made an offer or otherwise initiated a credit transaction before the creditor can look at your report. It
  is important to be careful when you are shopping around, especially for cars. Dealers will try to get you to sign an authorization so that
  they can look at your report and size up your financial situation before beginning their sales pitch. This request will then appear on your
  credit report and may negatively affect your credit.

• Landlords and Mortgage Lenders
  Landlords and mortgage lenders are also allowed to review your report. You can expect mortgage lenders to scrutinize your report
  very carefully before offering to lend you money to buy a home.

As you can see, there are alot of eyes looking at your credit report. This is why it is important that you always have a copy of your Free Annual Credit Report so you know exactly what info is being shared about you.