Home Credit report disputes Your Free Credit Report: What the Law Gives You
Your Free Credit Report: What the Law Gives You
A business owner's personal credit report can matter for funding. Here is where the real free reports come from and how often you can pull them.
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A business owner's personal credit report can matter for business funding. So it pays to see what is on it. Federal law gives you a free credit report, and the free ones come from one place only.
Why to pull your own report first
Reading your own report first means no surprises. You see what the report says about each account. You also spot mistakes early, while there is still time to fix them. Nothing in the process requires paying anyone.
The one authorized source
The FTC says only one website, AnnualCreditReport.com, is authorized to fill orders for the free annual credit reports you are entitled to by law. Other sites can sell you a report. They cannot give you the free one the law promises.
Is AnnualCreditReport.com really free, or a trial subscription in disguise? It is free. The FTC says you can always get a free weekly credit report there, with no purchase behind it.
How often you can pull one
More often than most people think. The FTC says all three nationwide credit bureaus let you check your credit report from each once a week for free at AnnualCreditReport.com. That is three reports a week, every week of the year. You can pull one every week, or all three at once, or space them out.
Extra free reports you may qualify for
The weekly reports are not the whole list. The FTC says you can get another free report in these cases:
- You get an adverse action notice after being denied credit, employment, insurance, or housing.
- You are unemployed and plan to apply for a job.
- You are on public assistance.
- Your report is inaccurate because of fraud, including identity theft.
- You have a fraud alert on your credit file.
The disclosure the law requires
The Fair Credit Reporting Act requires advertisements for free credit reports to state that free credit reports are available under Federal law at AnnualCreditReport.com. So an ad for a free credit report that never mentions AnnualCreditReport.com is missing a disclosure the law requires.
How the lookalikes work
Search for a free credit report and you will find sites that wish you had searched for something else. The FTC says imposter sites may misspell AnnualCreditReport.com, hoping you will mistype the official site's name.
Here is one test. The FTC says AnnualCreditReport.com and the credit bureaus will not email you asking for your Social Security number or account information. An email that does that is not them, no matter how it looks. Do not click its links. Type the site's name yourself.
If the report shows something wrong
A mistake on a free report costs nothing to dispute. You can dispute credit report with creditor yourself, and with the bureau, for free. The FTC and the CFPB both say so. True and current bad marks stay, though. A dispute is for errors.
Once you send it, what happens after you dispute a credit report follows a set path. The bureau investigates and sends you the results.
When the problem is identity theft
Say a stranger opened accounts in your name. That is a different job. A fraud alert on credit report is another step, and having one on your file earns you another free report. A security freeze on credit report stops the agency from releasing your report information without your express authorization. Fraud that made your report inaccurate also earns you another free report.
Pull your report before the lender does. Read it line by line. Fix what is wrong, and keep the rest of your file locked down.