Where do I get a credit report from? How much?

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Nik Manning

Well-known member
Yeah my credit sucks! I need to change that asap. So how do I find out who I owe money to and get a copy of my credit report? Thanks folks.
 
Nik-

I went through this myself. I thought I had slammin' credit but something was knocking my score down. So, I needed to do whatever it took to clean it up.

Here is my advice: Get a credit report/score from EACH credit bureau separately.

Equifax. Transunion. Experian. You never know what companies or creditors are going to look at. So, always get all three to find out what each bureau thinks of your rating.

Do not get a 3 in 1 report either. Some sites will offer you all 3 reports for $29.99...one stop shopping...

Well, its a headache to do it this way. You are asking a 3rd party to put this information together for you. So, if you need to dispute something and try to call the bureaus directly, they are just going to urge you to buy their copy directly to dispute anything. So, don't do it.

And lastly, reports are free. Credit scores are not. So, don't be surprised if each site charges you for your score. Its usually only about $9.99 per bureau. But be careful. One of them (experian or equifax, I cant remember which) charged me every month for their bogus credit 'management' services. Apparently, when you order your report/score, they will sign you up for that automatically unless you call them to cancel. That kind of you-pay-until- you've-noticed-we've-charged-your-account-and-now-you-have-to-go-out-of your-way-to-call-us-to-cancel-solicitation should be illegal. But, truth be told, your report is nearly useless without that score. So, suck it up and drop the $30 bucks.

http://www.experian.com/
https://www.econsumer.equifax.com/consumer/sitepage.ehtml?EFX_PARAMS=EFX_VALUES&CMP=KNC-Google&forward=products&HBX_OU=50&HBX_PK=equifax
http://www.transunion.com/

PS If you see something funky on your score, DO NOT HESITATE TO DISPUTE IT. Call them ASAP. It takes several weeks to process when they take something off.
 
How often should I get my credit score? I have a couple of small things that I plan on paying off. Nothing over $3000 total, but I just got my first real job 2 months ago. If I dispute something and they take it off how can I tell, do I get another credit report? This credit stuff is complicated. If you buy something with a credit card they want you to pay it back on their terms, weird. :)
 
JoeNash said:
www.freecreditreport.com
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Okay I did some research and found exactly what I needed.
DO NOT go to www.freecreditreport.com. They charge you a monthly fee.
THE ONLY GOVERNMENT APPROVED SITE IS www.annualcreditreport.com. I checked my credit report online and it gave detailed info why my credit sucked. I recommend everyone go here and check their credit report. I had a wow cable charge of over $1000 that I had no idea was on my credit. Plus a doctors fee that I never knew was there. I did also had a credit card that I never used on there also.
I meet a guy today that had a credit score of 808.
 
cool, I only have 1 late credit card payment...

I also updated my employment since it had me down as starting 10-06 not 06-05...

Maybe ill get turned down less for loans?
 
Nik Manning said:
THE ONLY GOVERNMENT APPROVED SITE IS www.annualcreditreport.com. I checked my credit report online and it gave detailed info why my credit sucked.
Click to expand...

Since you are entitled to a free report once a year from each of the "big three" credit bureaus, a good thing to do there is get one from one, then wait 4 months and get the report from another, then wait another 4 months and get one from the third. Then the cycle starts again the next year.

That way, you'll be able to closely track what's going on.
 
GenJerDan said:
Since you are entitled to a free report once a year from each of the "big three" credit bureaus, a good thing to do there is get one from one, then wait 4 months and get the report from another, then wait another 4 months and get one from the third. Then the cycle starts again the next year.

That way, you'll be able to closely track what's going on.
Click to expand...
Thats some dang good advice...

Personally, at first clip, I would get them ALL. Because you will be surprised how much they may vary. So get ALL 3. And like I suggested, you want to get them from each bureau directly.

When you apply for a credit card, a home loan, try to get an apartment, shoot even when you get auto insurance (in NY they run your credit the lecherous bottom feeders)...they will usually use one or two of the big 3. You really need to maintain good graces with all 3.

And, as I said, what they look at primarily is score. The report gives them info but a low score will nail the coffin shut. So, you really should consider going past getting 3 free reports and paying $9.99 per bureau per score. Trust me. I'm giving you golden advice here. I went from absolute abysmal credit to tip top shape by finding out where to go, what to get, how to dispute, who to call, etc.

Rick
 
For what it's worth, I used to work at a car lot, and now I work with a software company that makes credit reporting/pulling software, so here is a little of what I know on the subject.

Don't get your credit pulled too often, it looks bad on the report and it will lower your beacon score if you do it too much. Creditors will see that and think you're shopping around for someone to loan you money, etc.

Score is important, but they also look at your depth; time on job, time at residence, debt to income ratio (a big one), income, etc. Obviously if you have a really low score you're screwed.

If you want to build your credit your credit really fast, the best thing to do is do save up a large chunk of money and go get 3-4 secured credit cards that show up like normal credit cards. A secured credit card is where you put down money and they give you 75% of that to spend. Go out and get normal things you would get with cash and charge them up, not full, but close to, then cut them up and pay the minimum balance on them until they are paid off. My old boss told me that this will push your credit score up really fast because you have multiple lines of revolving credit. It won't increase your depth since the secured cards won't have huge credit limits, but at least it gets the score up so you can get your foot in the door.

well, that's a bit longwinded, if anyone has any questions, let me know, I know all the workings of the bureau and what gets reported,e tc.
 
Just to add/clarify something about credit card usage. The best use of credit cards (in terms of building your credit score) is to have a high available limit. Having credit cards near maxed out, or maxed out, will hurt your score. If it's 1 card with a 2k limit and you have 1900 on it, you only have 100 dollars available on your credit line. That's shows up as 90% of your available credit is used. 4 credit cards with a 20k limit that is maxed out is bad.

What is good is to have a high available credit. Meaning you have 4 cards that have a total of 20k. You have 2k on those cards. That means 90% of your credit line is available. You have 18k thousand dollars available. That makes your credit look really good.

Having a high available credit, coupled with regular useage and payment of your credit card debt (as suggested above) = fast improving credit.

A side note: if you are trying to pay down credit cards, its much better to make one payment every 14 days, rather than making a single monthly payment. Even if you just pay half of the monthly minimum every 14 days, you will pay off your credit cards an average of 75% faster than compared to when you make a single monthly payment.
This is because of something to do with the way the interest is figured. Also, because you are paying every 14 days, instead of every month, you are making a montly payment every 28 days, which ends up being one extra payment per year.

Phew.

Jason
 
The other biggie in getting loans, securing credit, etc. is ownership. You have to own something. A car, a house, whatever. Something a lender can consider as colladeral. (Something they can come take from you if you don't pay your bill.

Sometimes, even if you don't have the best of credit, or expendible income, you can still get your foot in the door with ownership.
 
Jason Ramsey said:
A side note: if you are trying to pay down credit cards, its much better to make one payment every 14 days, rather than making a single monthly payment. Even if you just pay half of the monthly minimum every 14 days, you will pay off your credit cards an average of 75% faster than compared to when you make a single monthly payment.
This is because of something to do with the way the interest is figured. Also, because you are paying every 14 days, instead of every month, you are making a montly payment every 28 days, which ends up being one extra payment per year.

Phew.

Jason
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You would need to pay more than half of the payment to make any difference in paying every 14 days.

For example, if you have a $1000 12 month loan and the first pay of $87.21 is due on the 1st of Jan and you pay that, you're next payment is due on Feb 1st with approx $7.75 interest due (@ 12% apr). So, if you pay only half on Jan 14th you only pay $3.25 interest, but when you come in 14 days later to pay the other half you pay $3.33 in interest, totalling $6.58 in interest, which only saves you $1.17.

Essentially, you need to make more than your monthly payment to really benefit from this method. The easiest way is to make a double payment every other month, more will go to principal thus making your interest lower.
 
You are correct. The example I was stating was just making 2 equal payments a month as opposed to one monthly payment. If someone is just paying their minimum once a month, they will pay it off much quicker by paying half of their minimum every 14 days. Whatever amount one is currently paying on their montly payment, they can speed up the time it will take to pay it off by paying half of that every 14 days.
 
if you don't want the hassle of going through a credit reporting bureau like equifax or experian, you could always give me your name, credit card, and social security number and i'll look it up for you.
 
Nik Manning said:
Very good info here. How/Where would I get a secured credit card from?
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Usually your bank or a local credit union, but you need to make sure it shows up like a normal credit card otherwise it doesn't look as good.
 
don't get a target card. you miss one payment and they report it the day of pretty much. i'm in the process of buying a house and i'm using wells fargo. the lady made a copy of my credit report for me. their reports pull from all 3 agencies and it shows your scores with all 3. and usually whomever you are trying to get a loan with goes with the middle score. the secured credit card is a really good idea. especially if you're gonna buy something expensive like a camera or computer and you have the cash saved already. and if you do the 14 day payment on a mortgage does that help?
 
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