Requesting a credit report or Credit Score

There are 3 businesses in the US that monitor credit. Equifax, Transunion, and Experian
The US government has worked with these companies and they now provide everyone to obtain a free credit report once a year. Each company will give you access to your report once a year so you are entitled to 3 reports a year. Some people elect to see all three at the same time or you can space them out over the year to have an updated view of your credit more often. To obtain the free copies of your credit report you can visit http://www.annualcreditreport.com/ which is the site that is listed by the government to access the free reports.

Also available from these companies and others is the opportunity to view your credit score. This service usually comes with a fee and I have not had a use for it as of yet. I took out a small personal loan last year and in the process the lender obtained my score and I was able to ask them the score and hear it in that way, so if you are in that position keep that in mind and when applying for credit you may be able to ask for your score in the process. I have heard that too frequent requesting of your score can have a negative effect on credit and that is one of my reasons for avoiding requesting it. Also, as mentioned in the previous post credit scores are simply a number used by lenders to assess reliability. If you obtain your credit report you can get a feel for what type of a score you might have.