Have you ever wondered why your credit card or loan application has been getting disapproved lately?  The current credit crunch and economic recession may have something to do with it but your credit rating could be the culprit.  There’s no harm checking out your credit rating and you can have an annual free credit report from any of the three credit reporting bureaus Experian, Equifax and TransUnion. The nation’s Fair Credit Reporting Act legally requires these three to provide local consumers with their credit history report without obligation at most once a year when requested.
Online Reports
The three bureaus have created a common affiliate company Annual Source LLC which owns and manages the site where you can get your annual free credit report at https://www.annualcreditreport.com.  Every resident American who had been enjoying the use of his/her credit card should have a copy of his/her credit report.  The free reports are not your FICO scores which can only be obtained at a price from any of these bureaus. What you get free is a detailed payment history used as a basis for computing your FICO sores.  It has all the details which you should verify if accurate as they can contain errors severe enough to bring down your FICO rating.
Manage our Credit Standing
Your credit is your door to opportunities.  You can’t allow any of the bureaus to be dictating on your credit.  Bear in mind that the three credit bureaus only accept and aggregate reports from courts, creditors, banks and collection agencies for payment transactions under family names of over a hundred million resident consumers across the country.
Recording mistakes are easy as these reports can have fraudulent, erroneous or non-existent accounts, merged transactions under identical surnames and wrong posted amounts or account numbers, among others.  Never fail to obtain a copy of your annual free credit report so you have a basis for contesting these errors. There are dispute forms you can accomplish like what you can pull out at http://www.oskie.com/credit-dispute.htm.

Every American consumer with a stake in getting a good credit status is entitled to examining his/her credit report without having to pay for it.  You can have a credit report from any of the three credit bureaus to whom banks and creditors as well as courts submit reports about a person’s payment practice.  These are Experian, Equifax and TransUnion with typical cost for a report starting at $10 monthly which includes monitoring your credit status regularly.  But with the nation’s Fair Credit Reporting Act, the three credit bureaus are mandated to provide inquiring consumers with a free credit report once every 12 months at the most.
What You Get
Your free credit report can be obtained from at least two known websites offering the service merging the reports from Equifax, Experian and TransUnion.  These are CreditReport.com owned and operated by Los Angeles-based Mighty Net, Inc and AnnualCreditReport.com owned by the three credit bureaus under the Central Source Llc.  The report provided by the AnnualCreditCReport.com is basically just a snapshot of your payment history without the 3-digit FICO score used by banks and creditors.  But it’s the same information used to calculate the score and any error or inaccuracy contained can severely downgrade your FICO score if left uncorrected.
Correcting the Errors in the Report
Getting a free credit report is one thing.  But making the corrections is entirely another.  You will need to fill-out a dispute form from any of the three credit bureaus to initiate an investigation to correct alleged erroneous items in the report. You may have to get back to your banks or creditors whose reports contained those errors and the process can be time-consuming.  But it needs to be done in order to ensure that your FICO score is based on accurate data that won’t unjustly compromise your credit standing.  It therefore makes sense for you to keep your credit card payment receipts.

Don’t Expect Your FICO Score in Free Credit Report GovEvery resident consumer in the land has the right to check his/her credit report. There are currently three credit bureaus who charge a minimum of nearly $10 for each report but not many realize they can have a free credit report gov.  It’s a legislated mandate for the three credit rating bureaus, Experian, Equifax and TransUnion to provide the reports free of charge to anyone asking for it.
Not your FICO Score
It’s not your 3-digit FICO score which you can get from any of these bureaus for a monthly charge, as it usually changes with your payment history over time.  What you get is just a rundown of your most recent payment history with your accounts, outstanding balances and payment trends.  But they are used to arrive at your 3-digit FICO scores and if your payment history has some inaccuracies, you can be sure it will have an adverse effect on your credit score.
When to Get Your Credit Report
Getting a free credit report gov once a year may not be enough, especially if you have a number of credit cards with varying and unpredictable payment patterns. Just one late payment can bring your credit score tumbling.  In addition, the three bureaus don’t necessarily get the same information for the same surname in their database.  Your credit card issuing banks could be reporting to any of the bureaus and not all of them, or at the same time.  It is best to get all three reports from the various bureaus either at the same time or at different times of the year.  The new government ruling for a free annual report from these bureaus doesn’t supercede the older conditions that entitle consumers to a free credit report.  You can have one when your loan application, insurance or job application based on credit are denied.  You can also get your free credit report gov if you are currently living in state that provide that provides one such as New Jersey, Vermont, Georgia, Colorado and Maine.

For almost a year, I’ve not been getting the usual credit card offers which used to besiege me at the office.  For a while, I thought that was great as it can be annoying most of the time, especially when you’re trying to control your shopping binges using the four gold cards and two platinum cards I’ve been using, two of which are maxed out.  Then lately, my bank has turned me down for a car loan application.  It wasn’t until the 3rd bank I applied disapproved my loan application that I started to wonder what is going wrong.
Checking my Credit Rating
My office colleague advised me to check my credit report.  It’s free online from the site CreditReport.com as well as AnnualCreditReport.com but only every year as mandated by the country’s Fair Credit Reporting Act and only if you asked for it.  So I did and I got to download one. It wasn’t what I expected and there was no credit scoring or the FICO rating used by creditors and banks to evaluate one’s credit worthiness.  It was just a straight listing of payments I made. After a few hours analyzing the report, it dawned on me that I must be getting a low score because there are a couple of line items with unsettled credit card bills, wrong payments.
Always Keep Your Own Payment Records
My mother was right when she advised me to always keep a payment record with the receipts compiled as you’d never know when you’d need to prove your payment integrity.  After filling out an online dispute form from this site http://www.oskie.com/credit-dispute.htm and faxing the payment receipts, I was able to correct most of the errors on the report and I just needed a confirmation from the card issuing bank that I never got the credit card reflected with non-payments on my credit report.  It took me three months to get it right.  Now, I’m looking forward to getting my car loan approved.

It’s interesting to note that based on a recent study of credit reports, around 25% of Equifax credit reports contain data errors serious enough to get creditors disapprove your loan or credit card applications.  For the resident consumer, this is one hell of a reason for you to get your credit report from them at this site: https://secure.creditreport.com/rt/index0302.aspx?src=cj&cid=500&tid=106787193&kwd=txt.  Since 1996, CreditReport.com has been providing consumer credit reports pulled out from Equifax as well as TransUnion and Experian, the two other credit bureaus mandated by law to provide free annual credit reports when asked.
Do Yourself a Favor
Every consumer in the country should have a copy of his/her credit report.  This is not the FICO score that lenders and creditors use to approve or disapprove your loan and credit card application.  But your updated credit report which you can get for free contains the relevant information to come up with the FICO scores you can get at a price from any of the three credit bureaus.  One of them is the Equifax credit report.It may be a concern to get one if you are blessed with countless offers for pre-approved loan and credit card offers which indicates a healthy FICO sore.  Otherwise, a free credit report is you only basis for information is you are getting no approvals from your loan and credit card application.
Initiating a Dispute
Once you are able to download your free Equifax credit report, analyze the report diligently and consult with an accountant or credit lawyer if you have questions. Bear in mind that any of these credit bureaus only report the information they get from banks and lenders. Data like account numbers, payment dates, amounts paid and even account names may contain errors that can compromise your FICO score. If you find any, don’t hesitate to initiate a dispute and you can accomplish a form for this purpose at http://www.oskie.com/credit-dispute.htm.  Remember that your credit rating is your door to opportunities.

Recognizing the importance of knowing where the consumer stands as far as his/her credit rating is concerned, the government has stepped in to further enhance its regulating powers with the Fair Credit Reporting Act.  The three credit information bureaus which regularly compile a snapshot of a consumer’s payment patterns are now mandated to provide a free annual credit report at most once in a 12 month period when a consumer asks for it. What to Look For In the Report
With payment trends being submitted by banks and creditors regularly under more than 200 millions surnames in their databases each, the three credit bureaus Experian, TransUnion and Equifax simply aggregates the reports under each surname easily generate the reports on demand.
Errors are easily generated as well.
It is not uncommon that inaccurate data can reach these bureaus from  he submissions involving a mix-up with similar surnames, not to mention the fact that banks and creditors are free to report anything to the bureaus without as much as taking a second look at the information they are submitting.  Fictitious accounts or account numbers with missing or wrong digits, as well as wrongful payment dates and amounts have been reported by consumers on these reports.  Many have successfully taken the bureaus to task and the amount of time involved is no joke.  These are the things consumers should look for when analyzing their free annual credit reports. The reports are all system generated and their accuracy has nothing to do with whether they are paid or free.
Have your Own Record
About the only way to dispute a wrong entry in your free annual credit report is to have tangible proof, either an acknowledgement of the error from your bank or creditor with a promise to correct in their next submission, or you have your known payment receipts to prove the error. Fill out the dispute form from any of the three credit bureaus to initiate your correction.  The process could take anywhere from a month to a year, but it’s your credit standing that makes the effort worth it.

The typical American consumer can rarely go by his/her routine activities without a good credit rating.  If you are diligently paying your amortization and credit card bills, there should be no problem racking up a high FICO score that creditors, banks and companies refer to when evaluating a application for a loan, a credit card or a job.  But that is no guarantee everything would be rosy over time.  Some people report getting their loans and credit card application disapproved despite having a religious payment history. You need to do something to manage your credit reporting and not rely passively on someone else doing it for you.
Erroneous Reporting
Unfortunately, the three credit bureaus, namely, Equifax, TransUnion and Experian simply aggregates reports form your banks and creditors in their databases and print out your credit report with some analysis done.  But as they say, garbage in is garbage out.  If the banks submit erroneous payment histories with possibly a wrong account number, a wrongly posted payment amount or a mix-up with a similar surname with a bad payment history, your credit score is certain to be screwed. With over 200 million surnames in their databases the chances of getting system generated errors is also high on the list.  It is for these reasons that consumers should get a regular copy of their credit report especially if they have a number of credit cards and outstanding loans where the risks of errors increase the more payment transactions get reported to these credit bureaus.  Any of the three credit bureaus can provide you with routine credit tracking and regular reports for a flat monthly fee starting at around $10.
Get It For Free
Alternatively, you can get one free from any of them but only once every 12 months as mandated by the nation’s Fair Credit Reporting Act.  Once you have the credit report, you should thoroughly go through it to check for any error and be prepared to dispute the items you find suspiciously inaccurate when compared against your payment receipts.

If you have a lot of payments going left and right for your many credit cards and loan amortization, it is always a good idea to routinely check your credit score.  At least, an annual credit report from any of the credit bureaus like Experian, TransUnion or Equifax should give you a good handle on what your creditor banks see when evaluating your credit standing. For a fixed monthly fee, usually starting at $10, you can enjoy a regular reporting and analysis of your credit situation as often as you need.
Getting your Credit Report for Free
But you can get one for free. Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, the three credit information bureaus are mandated to provide a free annual credit report once every 12 months when so requested.  Just be wary about the many sites that offer to pull out your payment snapshots from any of these bureaus as most rarely do it without some form of paid subscription or enrollment.  Your best bet is to get one from either AnnualCreditReport.com operated by Central Source Llc which is owned by the three competing credit bureaus, or from CreditReport.com owned and operated by Los Angeles-based Mighty Net, Inc which as been in the business of providing such services for years.
Correcting the Errors
Any inaccuracy in your annual credit report should be reported and contested immediately.  Equifax reports, for instance, are known to contain as much as 25% errors, enough to severely compromise your credit score. You will need to fall back on those payment receipts you’ve accumulated for the contested period and get in touch with the bank or creditor with the questionable data.  A dispute form can be filled-out from any of the credit bureaus so you can formally initiate the correction.  This can take time, but if you are suffering some credit problems because of these errors, you really have no choice.

There are currently three credit bureaus competing with each other in providing credit information to millions of American consumers. These are Experian, Equifax and TransUnion.  Every consumer who has a stake in his credit rating needs to visit his/her credit report at least once a year.  Don’t let old or inaccurate information fester on the report as this could severely impact on your future credit card, loan, insurance or job application.  It’s a good thing you can have one free every year.  As mandated by the Fair Credit Reporting Act, you can pull out your report online or by mail from the site Annualcreditreport.com at least once every 12 months.   Don’t confuse this with Experian’s free credit report.com which has strings attached to it that has embroiled it in litigations about its fair practices.
What is Free Credit Report.com?
The site is owned by an affiliate of the credit bureau Experian – the Experian Consumer Direct, Llc.  You get your “free” credit report provided you sign up to their Triple Advantage program which is a credit tracking service that charges a fee against your credit card with 30 days of signing up if you don’t cancel.  Apart form the credit payment history which is what you get for free, you get a PLUS credit score which is basically what you’d be paying for.
Free Credit Report.com has been less than honest with its online advertising offering free reports that have misled consumers.  As a result, Experian has been sued by the Federal Trade Commission in 2005 for obvious deceptive marketing practices which the company settled for $950,000 in the form of free tracking to its current members.  The following year, the Florida Attorney General subjected it to a formal inquiry for its misleading claims of free credit reports which has since been labeled as a scam by no less than the ConsumerFraudReporting.org.  The scam continues to this day. A mere fine of $950,000 is nothing compared to the potential $72 million advertising revenue it gets for free credit report claims.