Northeast residents - Finally, free credit reports

[Junkman]

This post is only for the members of TBN that are considering buying a tractor and financing it.... All others please disregard

As of September 1st, 2005 the residents of the Northeast will be able to get free credit reports on their computer or by mail. The address to go to is AnnualCreditReport.com . You will be able to get the reports from all 3 reporting agencies. If you want to read the MSN news article first, click here..... I also suggest that if you are going to print out the reports, that you consider having a full ream of paper handy and make sure the ink cartridge is fresh. There was information going back to 1980 in one of my reports. One report showed I was late 3 times in credit card payments, but the other report didn't reflect this at all. Those 3 times were a long time ago, but the accounts are still open, so I guess that is why they show up in the history.

That is all the good news. Now for the bad news.... You will have to prove your identity, and that can be simple or difficult. I had no problem with my identity proof with Experian & Equifax. TransUnion, didn't agree with my birth year. For each of them, they will ask for your social security number and to answer some personal questions that they believe only you will know the answers to. With TransUnion, I had to enter every one of my credit card numbers till I ran out of cards to enter. Then they asked for my birth year, but didn't agree with what I provided. Then it told me that I was out of chances and would have to try to get my credit report another way. I will need to call tomorrow to see if I can get that straightened out. I did notice that I still have some credit card accounts open that haven't been active for many years. I am thinking of closing them, but don't know for sure if that is the correct thing to do. They have high limits, and no activity, and there is no reason to keep them. Overall, I am very happy with what they have to report. I would even loan me money if I didn't know myself so well..... /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[Bird]

Junkman, I haven't gotten the "free" ones yet, but did recently pay Equifax for all three. We've seen so much about identity theft lately that I decided to check myself before applying for a mortgage. I guess mine was much like yours. And apparently, it just depends on what day they last got their information. The only debt they showed was an amount on one credit card (which I pay in full every month). I have 3 credit cards; one of which was used one time last year just to see if it was still active (it was). We do use the other two. However, the credit report showed 10 "open" accounts, one of which I cannot identify, but which is paid and with a zero balance. And while I got all three "credit reports", I only got one FICO score. Equifax showed 813. But when the mortgage company ran their credit check, I had 813 with Equifax, but I think it was 802 and 810 with the other two. I didn't know each one calculated their own FICO score. And you're right about needing lots of paper if you print it all out. /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

 

[gsxr1100]

only took them over a year!

 

[riptides]

Bit of info -

This is a report only... the credit score you will have to purchase. Credit scores were NOT part of the deal.

-Mike Z. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[bczoom]

Thanks for the reminder Junk.

I got all mine this morning.

As a heads up, I found that to prove your identity, it's much easier if you use mortgage info (if you have one) as opposed to credit card info. When using the credit cards, they ask for a lot of account numbers, even on cards you may no longer have sitting in your wallet (open accounts that should have been closed but haven't).

Brian

 

[gsxr1100]

yup, I wonder how many thousands they are getting from people to get their score (me included)???