Protecting Your Identity: Online Credit Reports
By Jonathan Berohn
Keeping tabs on your credit history has always been a smart course of action. In addition to the obvious, people and companies use your credit scores from everything to hiring decisions to determining your insurance rate.
Something as simple as a reporting error can have serious consequences in all sorts of aspects of your life. Today, with the glut of identity thefts days, watching your credit scores has never been more important.
The Sources
There are all kinds of ways to get your credit report. You can write or call one of the major agencies, but the easiest and fastest way to do it is online. Beware if you just jump on to Google and search for "credit reports." That search returns more than 6 million - yes million - hits. Selling credit reports (and services like credit counseling and debt reduction) is quite a lucrative business. One thing to always keep in mind is that your credit score comes form one of 3 places:
Every other web site that offers to sell you your credit score is getting it from one or more of these three companies. Now, I certainly wouldn't want to discourage you if you have your heart set on one of the other 6.6 million sites out there, but I'd rather avoid the middleman. OK - number of hits doesn't equal number of companies - but you get the point. But wait - you might ask - which report should I get? That's the beauty of the...er - "collusion" is such a loaded word - let's say "cooperation" between the three credit agencies. They all sell a 3-in-1 report that gives you all 3 scores.
The Services
In general, you get the same thing from every report. They list your personal information, your credit accounts, inquiries made about your credit history, and any derogatory information like missed payments, collections, and bankruptcy. In short, you get everything you need to make sure someone hasn't opened up new accounts in your name and started ruining your credit rating, and you can also keep tabs on your legitimate creditors to make sure they are reporting things about you accurately. Anyway you look at it, that's a lot of peace of mind for $30.