Are There Free Credit Reports By law?

The government requires that the major credit reporting companies give you at least one free credit report every 12 months. This is governed by legislation, otherwise termed the Fair Credit Reporting act FCRA. These firms have a central website where you can go fill out your details and obtain your report immediately. There’s a sole website authorized by the state to offer free reporting although other sites claim to offer such monitoring. The consumers are taken care of by the government agency called the FTC Fair Trade Commission which let the consumer be aware of their credit status without unfairness on the part of the monitoring firms.

Ordering free credit reports is quite easy; the reporting firms have websites that are easily accessible and only require the client to print out their details upon inputting their details. They also have toll-free phone numbers and a mailing address from which you can order your free report. The firms are legally required to grant you the report within 15 days upon calling and the same time amount with the inclusion of a receipt in the case of a mailing address.

The form may also be printed from the FTC’s official site. However, you should not contact the major credit monitoring companies individually, it is better to head to their central website or contact them through either the toll-free line or their address.

By law, the client is only needed to provide their name, Social Security number, address and date of birth while applying for a free report. The monitoring company may as well need addresses to the previous residencies in case you have moved within 2 years. Questions that are only privy to you assist in verifying that the report is actually being collected by the legitimate owner.

Ordering of your credit report may be done from any of the reporting companies at the client’s own discretion. These companies get their information from different sources and their monitoring practices may not necessarily be in sync. As much as the credit report may not correspond across different monitoring companies is not necessarily inaccurate.