Free Credit Reports

[Uncle Skid]

From the Federal Trade Commission:

Soon you’ll be able to get your credit report for free. A recent amendment to the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) requires each of the nationwide consumer reporting companies to provide you with a free copy of your credit report, at your request, once every 12 months.

Looks like people who live in western and midwestern states can do it now; southern and eastern states follow later this year. Anybody done this yet?

It seems like a good idea to do this every once in awhile, if for nothing else than to see if things are accurate.

Also came across this recently - buried in the fine print of all those unsolicited credit card offers that come in the mail is a toll-free number to "opt-out": 1-888-567-8688 (1-888-5-OPTOUT). There is also a website (www.optoutprescreen.com). I read somewhere that you must type in that address directly, as they don't allow linking.

I'm always skeptical of things like this, but they both appear to be legitimate.

Edited March 14, 2005 by Uncle Skid

[wesbed]

The site is VeriSign Secured. This makes me believe the site offers some degree of legitimacy.

[mgraham333]

Not sure I would consider the VeriSign a seal of approval. Especially when the site asks for your SSN.

Below is the information from the WHOIS from their domain. The next step would be to do a little digging based on the contact info.

Registrant:

Consumer Data Industry Association

1090 Vermont Avenue, N.W.

Suite 200

Washington, District of Columbia 20005

United States

Registered through: GoDaddy.com

Domain Name: OPTOUTPRESCREEN.COM

Created on: 10-Aug-04

Expires on: 10-Aug-06

Last Updated on: 29-Nov-04

Administrative Contact:

Payne, Alicia acpayne@cdiaonline.org

Consumer Data Industry Association

1090 Vermont Avenue, N.W.

Suite 200

Washington, District of Columbia 20005

United States

2023710134 Fax --

Technical Contact:

Payne, Alicia acpayne@cdiaonline.org

Consumer Data Industry Association

1090 Vermont Avenue, N.W.

Suite 200

Washington, District of Columbia 20005

United States

2023710134 Fax --

Edited March 14, 2005 by mgraham333

[Jazzmoose]

I definitely reccommend checking your reports. As Uncle Skid notes, those of us on the west coast already have this option, and I checked mine. I was shocked to discover that I actually had an unpaid bill on my record. Seems that in the last apartment I rented before moving in with Barb, the landlord neglected to put the gas/electricity back in his name after I moved out as he assured me he would. My mistake for trusting the scumsucking pig. So I've had this bill for $92 for power two months after I left the place on my record for years. Great. Oh well; it's taken care of now, and I guess I needed another lesson in not trusting assholes, so alls well now...

[Uncle Skid]

I went ahead and did it, and there's no doubt in my mind that this is legit.

When you first start the process, they come back with about six multiple choice questions that only you should know the correct answers. For example, mine included questions about the street of my former residence (5 choices, only 1 correct), and also the make/model of a car I had purchased about 12 years ago.

Once all those questions were answered, I was able to view and print the complete credit report. I chose to only get one from Experian, as we are all entitled to one "free" report per year, per credit reporting agency. Since there are three agencies, there was a recommendation to do one request every four months or so, effectively giving me three complete, free reports per year.

The most surprising thing on the report was the "request for your credit history" section. This section lists all companies that have requested to review my credit history over the last few years.

Over 15 companies were on that list, most of which I have no relationship with. The big offenders were Capital One Bank (9 requests over 2 years) and BankOne (12 requests over 1 year!!). I assume that these must be where the bulk of those preapproved credit offers come from!