Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments
NOTE: use Perl; is on undef hiatus. You can read content, but you can't post it. More info will be forthcoming forthcomingly.

All the Perl that's Practical to Extract and Report

use Perl Log In

Log In

[ Create a new account ]

schwern (1528)

schwern
  (email not shown publicly)
http://schwern.net/
AOL IM: MichaelSchwern (Add Buddy, Send Message)
Jabber: schwern@gmail.com
Schwern can destroy CPAN at his whim.

Journal of schwern (1528)

Monday April 04, 2005
01:55 PM

Free credit report

[ #24007 ]

I've been moving around a lot the past year, I finally just settled down rooming with Ovid. As a result my mail has been chasing me around and not all of it made it. So some bills got dropped on the floor, but my non-existant accounting system doesn't tell me what.

I found out from a friend one can get a free copy of their credit report every 12 months.

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.

For some reason they're rolling it out west to east, so being in Oregon I can get my report now but those on the east cost have to wait until the end of the year. Interesting reading. You can see all your positive and negative credit reports. You can also see who has accessed your credit report and when. Discover, Capital One and Bankone DE like to look at my account a lot.

I found out that a few people think I owe them money. Some were correct. Most I have to dispute. All I can say about that is today I've encountered pretty much every crappy automated phone system, every flavor of hold music and every way to get my call dropped while on hold.

Fun.


List all Journal entries
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

Free credit report 4 Comments More | Login | Reply /

 Full
 Abbreviated
 Hidden
More | Login | Reply
Loading... please wait.
  • The free credit reports at the federal level may be rolling out west->east, but some states already have statutes that require the same thing. Maryland residents have been entitled to a free annual credit report for a couple of years now.

    There is one reason why you would want to pay for your credit report though -- if you wan to see your credit score. There are a couple of ways around that, of course. You should be able to get a look at it if you do anything major financially, like get a mortgage or

    • Or, my favorite trick... apply for something you're not likely to get (like American Express Plutonium or something), and they'll send you a rejection notice. The credit bureau listed on the rejection notice is required to give you a full disclosure of your credit report by law, for free.
      --
      • Randal L. Schwartz
      • Stonehenge
      • That application and rejection is also tagged onto your credit report, and can have an adverse impact. So, would you rather pay the $30, or do some damage your credit rating by scaming a free score?
        • Ziggy's absolutely correct to a degree. IIRC, up to about 4 inquiries (within 6 months?) don't hurt you. One inquiry isn't going to hurt you.

          And you don't need to pay $30 for an individual report. You can get a single bureau report from myfico.coma for $15, and it includes the real FICO score. I also use a service called MyCreditKeeper.com to get a merged report from all 3 bureaus. It lets me pull as many reports as I want, as often as a I want. It isn't so good about getting information to contact the c

          --
          "Perl users are the Greatful Dead fans of computer science." --slashdot comment
Stories, comments, journals, and other submissions on use Perl; are Copyright 1998-2006, their respective owners.