Free Credit Report: Make It Work for You
Contributed by Boo Roberts
What is a free credit report?
A free credit report is what you are entitled to every year in the state of Massachusetts. I don't know how it is in other states, maybe you can only get a free credit report every other year, rather than every year. A free credit report can be a very important tool for helping establish a good credit history for yourself. Having access to your free credit report allows you to make sure your financial records are in order.
A credit report contains all sorts of pertinent financial information, and it is what is used when you apply for anything: a mortgage, a car loan, a credit card, even sometimes when you apply for a job.
How can I get my free credit report?
You can get your free credit report by calling the credit reporting companies and giving some very basic information It is an automated system, and you are asked to input your social security number, your date of birth, and then you are asked to verify your address. The last time I called for my credit report, it was to verify that my credit card had not been stolen.
What had happened was, I was searching around on ebay and when I clicked on an item, instead of taking me to the item, the prompt took me to an update information screen. What I found out later was that it wasn't even an ebay account screen; someone had created an official-looking screen to get unsuspecting customers' credit card information.
