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You may have seen the ads telling you where you can get copies of your consumer credit reports for free. Read the fine print and you will see that there is some sort of catch with these ads that will ultimately cost you money. You don’t need to pay for your reports no matter what someone else says. Let’s take a look at how you can really and truly get copies of your credit reports for free.

Thanks to an amendment made to the Fair Credit Reporting Act in 2003, Congress authorized the Federal Trade Commission to mandate that copies of your credit report be made available to you for free. Previously, in order to secure your report, you would have had to pay a fee. As of September 2005, residents of all fifty states are now eligible to obtain a free copy of their credit report from Experian, Trans Union, and Equifax once per year.

So, why were the reports made available at no charge to consumers? Well, even though all three companies operate independently from the government, combined they carry so much weight in determining your credit standing - and your very livelihood - that a decision was made that everyone should have access to their personal reports on demand. Furthermore, since a significant number of these reports have been determined to contain errors, consumer advocates insisted that you shouldn’t have to pay to correct someone else’s mistakes. Enter the Fair Credit Reporting Act as amended in 2003.

There are several ways you can order your free credit reports, but there is only one web site that will give you your reports for free: www.annualcreditreport.com. Again, only this one site acts on behalf of Equifax, Experian, and Trans Union to give you your reports to you for free.

You can also call the following toll free number to order your free credit reports:
1-877-322-8228

If you wish, you can place your request in writing after downloading and filling out a form found online at http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/include/requestformfinal.pdf. If you choose this method, you will need to mail the form to:

Annual Credit Report Request Service

P.O. Box 105281

Atlanta, GA 30348-5281

For more information about the Fair Credit Reporting Act and the Federal Trade Commission, please visit the following site: http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/credit/freereports.htm

When ordering your reports you can also request your FICO score. Unlike your free credit report, you will pay a small fee - typically between $5 and $7 - to get your score. If you elect to learn your score you can use a credit card to pay for your transaction. The three national credit reporting bureaus may also attempt to sell other services to you while you are checking off the information for your free credit report. These services include alerts, but you probably won’t need them. If you select some of the other offers, you will be charged for the service, so be careful what you pick.

Copyright 2006 - For additional information regarding Matt Keegan, The Article Writer, please visit his blog for wit, quips, and freelance writing tips.

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Most people know that credit scores determine what and how much you can borrow from lenders, but very few are actually knowledgeable about how credit scores are calculated.
When you attempt to borrow money from a financial institution or to obtain a credit card, the financial companies retrieve a copy of your credit report, which contains a score that qualifies (or disqualifies) you for the loan or line of credit.

Credit scores range from 340 to 850, and are used to determine the risk lenders take on when they give you money or credit. An individual with a credit score of 480 will pose a much larger risk to the lender than an individual with a credit score of 700. If you don’t know your credit score, it might be a good idea to find out.

The three credit bureaus - Equifax, Transunion and Experian - use a special type of software that uses the information in your credit report to generate a numerical score. Credit scores are sometimes called “FICO scores” because the first credit score software was produced and distributed by Fair Isaac CorporationFICO.

Credit scores are calculated using the following information:

35% Payment History

30% Amount Owed

15% Length of Credit History
10% Types of Credit Utilized
10% New Credit Obtained

Payment History

Your payment history encompasses all of your past credit accounts - including loans, mortgages, financing and lines of credit. It will include the accounts that you have “paid as agreed”; negative accounts and collections; and delinquent accounts. Delinquent accounts will show how many accounts are past due, the amount of time that the account has been past due and how much time has elapsed since you’ve had a past due payment.

Amount Owed

The part that includes the amounts you owe will include how frequently you pay down your credit, how much of your revolving credit lines you’ve used, and the total number of zero-balance accounts. This is used to determine how frequently you pay off your debts and how much you continue to accrue as time goes on.

Length of Credit History

Your credit score will also reflect how long your credit report has been tracked and how long it has been since you’ve last opened an account. The longer your credit report is tracked, the higher your credit score will be as along as you continue to make payments and to avoid collections.

Types of Credit Utilized

There are many more types of credit than just credit cards. Your credit history encompasses mortgages, auto loans, business loans and all types of financing. When you’ve used several different types of credit - rather than just revolving credit, such as a credit card - your credit score will be higher.

New Credit Obtained

New credit refers to accounts that you have opened or paid off within the last six months. New credit doesn’t hold as much weight as older accounts because you’ve had less time to pay (or not pay).

Credit scores are generated by all three credit bureaus, and you might have three very different credit scores. The three bureaus use different ways of calculating credit scores, and one bureau might have more information than another. It is up to your lenders to report positive or negative credit, and if they report it to only one company, then it will not show up elsewhere.

Copyright Ed Vegliante. Free online reprints of this article are allowed provided the resource box remains intact with a live link back to http://www.credit-card-surplus.com .

Ed Vegliante runs the website http://www.Credit-Card-Surplus.com , a well organized credit card directory enabling the consumer to compare and apply for a variety of credit card offers. Find links to secure online Credit Card Applications.

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If you are in the market to buy a new car or a house, or even to rent property, your FICO score will be checked. The main benefit of credit scoring, lenders argue, is that they can make decisions faster by using automated systems.

You may now ask, “What is a FICO score?” A FICO score is a scoring method developed by the Fair Isaac Corp. to aid the three major credit bureaus, namely, Equifax, Experian, and Trans Union. It is a computer model that assesses your credit worthiness against several other customers.

In the past, when you applied for a credit or loan, you were in complete darkness about your credit score. The lender would request the score from one or more credit bureaus and, if you wanted to access such information, you were required to a certain amount of fee. At the present, you can access your credit reports without any charge. You can also have your credit score report send to you via email or post mail free of cost, at a regular time period, such as once monthly.

In the past, if there were too many inquiries made on your credit, your credit scores use to go down. However, when you access your credit report now, it doesn’t affect your credit score. Scores also vary based on current credit activity. Since credit bureaus only calculate your score at the lender’s request, it will be based on the information in your file at that particular credit bureau, at that particular time only.

There are also many website and companies that now help customers understand and get their credit reports for free. They guide the customer through the process and teach them how to access such information. You would have seen the popular television advertisement of “Freecreditreport.com” You also see a lot of banner advertisements on the web about the subject.

FICO scores provides detailed information about FICO scores, FICO score calculation, and more. FICO scores is affiliated with Filing Bankruptcy Online.

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