Avoiding free credit report and free credit score scams.
In last week’s blog I relayed information on how to receive federally mandated free credit reports. The official site for your free credit reports from the major credit reporting agencies s is www.annualcreditreport.com. Unfortunately, thousands of scam artists have also latched on to this consumer benefit. Many scam artists run fake “get your free credit report” websites that exist just to “harvest” your personal information such as social security number and account numbers that they can use to steal your money. At best, even the legitimate “free credit report” sites provide out-of-date-information and their main purpose typically is to sell you expensive “credit monitoring services.” If you stagger each of your free reports throughout the year, you will be able to check your report every four months for errors or possible fraudulent activity. And remember that no government agency or credit reporting agency sends you unsolicited emails requesting your personal information or asking you to correct your report.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) suggests doing yourself a favor and saving your money – don’t believe the unofficial sites’ claims: they’re very likely signs of a scam. Attorneys at the nation’s consumer protection agency say they’ve never seen a legitimate credit repair operation making grandiose claims of a quick fix to repair your credit.
Why checking your credit report is important to maintaining your credit score.
Whether you like your credit score or are alarmed by it, you can begin managing it by carefully checking your credit report for errors. Because your credit report provides the primary information used to determine your credit score and your creditworthiness, it’s important to correct any errors you find immediately.
How to correct errors in your credit report
The process for correcting errors is not particularly complex, but it does require a number of steps to make sure you adequately inform all the parties who need to know and follow up on your complaint. The FTC guide How to Dispute Credit Report Errors provides complete details on how to do this.
In addition to making sure your credit report is accurate, there are other steps that you can take to improve your credit rating and credit score. Next week, I'll offer some practical tips on improving and repairing your credit score. The information in this blog is a combination of material gathered from a variety of sources and my personal experience. Please let me know if you have found this information to be helpful... askgene@roguefcu.org. I am beginning to get a bit worried since I haven’t heard from anyone since I started this series. What do you think? What do you want to know?
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