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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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You can get started fixing your FICO credit score by reaching into your wallet or purse and pulling out the plastic.

Yes, it’s time to get serious about debt….

Your goal is to reduce your outstanding balances on all your credit cards. It’s been reported that nearly one-third of one’s FICO credit score — 30% — is based on the ratio of your credit limits and how much you owe on each credit card account.

Following through with maintaining this ratio on your own cards will go a long way to improving your own credit score.

Make it an iron-clad rule with yourself that you don’t use more than 30-50 percent of your total available credit. This means knowing what your credit limit is, knowing how high the balance is, and making a deal with yourself that this balance will start coming down immediately!

So right now, do this: Turn those plastic cards in your hand over and call the toll-free numbers on the back of them. On a single piece of paper, write down the balance due, available credit left, next minimum payment amount that is due, and the due date.

List all the cards you have, whether you use them or not.

Now, write down in the left column, next to each, what your payments will be if you double the minimum payment this month. Total them up, and make plans to pay this new amount starting with this month’s payments.

This could mean sacrificing spending money on something else. This could mean selling something so you can free up some monthly income to cover these newly self-imposed credit card payment increases. Whatever you need to do, do it. It will be worth it.

Having a credit card that’s maxed out with a $1,000 credit limit tends to hammer your FICO credit score harder than if you have a $15,000 credit line on your credit card and you carry $5,000 in outstanding debt.

You can sometimes call the card issuer and request that they increase your credit limit to get you to this ratio, but it’s easier to pay down the debt and eliminate the amounts you owe. Besides, having more debt could even be too tempting at times, and you definitely don’t want to pile on any more to your credit card balances!

But by following the strategy listed here, you’ll be taking action yourself to fix the problem, and within 6-12 months, with determination and discipline and good spending habits, you’ll be amazed at how fast these credit card debts will disappear.

Yes, I know other credit guru’s recommend paying down the credit card with the lowest balance, or the credit card that carries the highest interest rates first. That’s a great strategy, but you need to first get your card balances in ratio to help improve your FICO score… then you can start down the path of debt reduction.

It’s a good idea to always keep your oldest credit card, even if it isn’t getting used any longer, as the longer you’ve had credit, the better.

But don’t keep the card if there is a stiff annual fee, it may not be worth it. Keep the next oldest card you have that carries no annual fee.

Steve Johnson is publisher of http://www.FindHow2.com, which offers free advice on cleaning up your credit report to help improve your FICO credit score, as well as other
free “how-to” articles on debt management, budgeting, saving money and loan consolidation.

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