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How To Get Your Credit Report, understand and improve your credit score. In this credit report chapter: Everything you need to know about credit reports and credit scores. How to get your Credit Report from Equifax and others instantly online. Which sites have free credit reports. Big 3 credit bureaus addresses, phone numbers. How to improve your credit score. All about credit monitoring. Tips on credit repair. Sites to get your online credit report The top sites to get your credit report from are Experian, Equifax or TrueCredit. All these sites allow you to get your online credit report instantly. Be sure you choose the option that gives your credit score too. These sites are reviewed further down the page. Now is the time to get your credit report Don't put it off until later, you'll be sorry. Do it now before you even finish reading this page, so you can find out what your score is, and begin your first steps to improve it. It takes 30 to 60 days to get issues with your credit history resolved. What your credit score tells about you Credit scores are usually in the 300-900 range, and the higher the better. Credit scores are generated by the credit bureaus when they print your credit report. They do it using software from the Fair Isaac Company, hence the name FICO score. Calculating your credit score is very complicated, based on over 100 parameters in your credit file, including length of credit history, number of open accounts, loans, mortgages, public records, and others. There are other companies that generate credit scores, but the Beacon FICO score is what most lenders use. When you get your Credit Report from Equifax, they call it Score Power. Your credit score is a predictor for lenders, of your ability to pay. The higher your score, the more likely it is that you'll pay back your creditors on time. According to Equifax, 51% of all the people with a credit score from 550-599 will default on their credit. That's scary.

What A Low Credit Score Means To You
Your credit score is the single most important factor determining whether you'll get approved for a mortgage, car loan, refinance loan, or credit cards, and what your APR will be. If your score is low, you'll pay very high interest rates, up to 23%. Most people are also unaware that their credit score also affects how much you'll pay for car insurance rates too. Many insurance companies run a credit check on you before selling you insurance.

Maintaining your high credit score should be an ongoing process, not a task you rush into when you need to apply for new credit, home loans, or car loans. In fact, that's the worst time. The reason is banks will reject you if you have disputed any items on your credit report, until it resolves in 30 days. It can take 60 days to clean up your credit score, so don't apply for any new credit until all disputes are resolved and you verified the FICO Score. You have been warned! I have seen people get rejected for disputing while closing accounts. Wait until the accounts are closed and any credit bureau investigations and disputes are complete. Right now, you should be asking yourself "How good is my credit score?"

Can I get my free credit report online?
Not really. The credit bureaus realized there is money to be made by selling your credit report to you for a small fee, rather than give it away. If you're looking for your free Equifax credit report, it's not going to happen unless you're enrolled in a credit monitor service. The only time you'll ever get your credit report free is when you are rejected for credit, and the creditor who rejected you is required to give you a free copy of your credit report. But it's not usually a good thorough credit report from one of the big 3, it's usually some bare bones report from some no name company that runs cheapie credit reports, and you get no credit score either, so they are almost useless. Don't be so cheap, pay the few bucks and get your real credit report. There is another way to get your "free credit report". When you sign up to credit monitoring services such as Experian, Equifax or TrueCredit you can usually get your free credit report online any time you like. Check with each company to find out.

What Should Your Credit Score Be For Credit & Loan Approval?

• If your credit score is above 680, you are considered a "prime borrower" and will get a good APR on your home loan, car loan, or credit card.
  
• If your credit score is below 680, you are "sub prime", and will pay much higher APR on your loan. Below 550, you can forget about a home loan, car loan, or credit card.

Where to get your credit score: Online at Experian, Equifax or TrueCredit. So what did your credit score turn out to be? I hope it was good, otherwise, time to get to work.

Car Loans: A Great Resource
For better details and tips related to car loans, car leasing, and buying used cars, be sure to visit our other consumer advocate site CarBuyingTips.com. In the finance chapter there, you'll see all sorts of tips for getting qualified at lower interest rates, and avoiding car finance scams associated with car dealer financing. It's a must read if you're buying a new car soon. You'll also find tips for checking a used car's title and VIN# by getting vehicle history reports. If your credit is real bad, maybe you should not be considering a new car right now. Click Here For Tips On Buying A Used Car & Avoiding Scams at CarBuyingTips.com.

Credit score myths: "I've never missed a payment. My score must be high!"
A lot of fools tell me this: This could not be more wrong. I'm amazed how many people I know were very upset when they got their credit score and found out just how low it was. Sure paying on time is one of the best things for your FICO score, but it's only one of over 100 variables making up your credit score. Having several open accounts does just as much damage to your credit score, because there is potential for you to run up your credit limit on all your accounts. People with good credit tend to have too much credit, and too many old accounts that they never use. Lenders view that as a risk. When I got my score it was ok, but needed improving by closing half a dozen computer store and department store cards which I no longer use, that were dragging down my score. You should get your credit history report, especially if you have not seen it in the last year. These are the steps to take before you apply for a home loan, a car loan, or credit cards:

• Get your Credit Score and credit history, verify all the information is correct.
• Close old accounts, they are excess luggage and dragging down your score.
• Pay down as much of your credit card debt as you can.
• Remove any incorrect addresses or other errors.
• Try to get any "Charge Offs" removed. Talk to your creditors, not the bureaus.
• Wait until disputes resolve before applying for home loans, car loans, etc.
• Aim for a credit score of at least 680 to be sure you'll get the best APR.

Making your online credit report a smooth transaction
The online sites who give your credit report to you must be absolutely sure that it's really you asking for your credit report. They ask a security question like "enter an account number of one of your credit cards". Here's where many people mess up because they do not read the instructions: Do not use the credit card that you are using to pay for the report as one of the security question account numbers, or you'll be rejected, and they have to mail your report instead of giving it online. This is because a thief could have stolen one of your credit card numbers and is using it to get your credit report. So they make you provide another number, because it's unlikely that the thief has more than one of your credit card numbers. Don't screw up on this step! Get that security question correct.

3-In-1 Merged Credit Reports
If you've never run your credit report before, or if you're applying for a home loan, you should get the "3 in one merged credit report", which is a big credit report made up of 3 single credit reports from the big 3 credit bureaus: Equifax, Experian (formerly TRW), and Trans Union. This is the type of credit report that banks run on you when qualifying you for a mortgage. You should get the merged report because each credit bureau's report contains different types of information. One credit bureau could have accurate information in your credit file, while the other 2 have errors that could keep you from getting approved for any type of credit. Here's a few sites that offer single reports, merged reports, and credit scores.

You never want to see the words "Charge Off" on your credit report!
If you failed to pay a bill to a creditor and they called you but never got any money from you, they write it off as a loss and label it a "Charge Off" on your credit report. This is one of the worst things in the world for you and even if your score is decent, most lenders will reject you if they see a charge off in your credit profile. This is because Charge Off means loser! Deadbeat! Someone who never paid their bills. If this appears on your report, do whatever you can to get it off. Don't contact the credit bureau, they can't do anything about it. You must contact the creditor who put it there, and negotiate with them to remove it by paying them back.

In reviewing your credit report you may have come across inaccuracies or black marks on your payment history. Some of the most common inaccuracies are current employer or salary. These must be corrected if you expect to be approved for credit based on your current income. There may be an error on your report which is causing you a bad credit rating even though you do not deserve it. On the other hand your bad credit rating might be accurate. Either way there are actions that you can take to restore your credit. This chapter will first discuss how to fix errors, typos, and omissions on your credit report.

Credit Repair Tips
Read the chapter How To Restore Your Credit Yourself, which provides advice on restoring a bad credit rating, and making your credit report look more presentable to get you the credit you deserve. It explains everything you need to repair your own credit yourself and save thousands is losses to the credit doctor scams.

Many people are scared because they don't know what's on their credit report or how it will affect their chances for a good deal. Car dealers use this to their advantage because almost everyone has a bad mark on their report. How often does this happen: You get an erroneous notice from a credit card or bank saying "we never got your check". You call them up, find out it's their mistake, no problem. But many people are shocked to find out this error made it onto their credit report! Here are some other scenarios that can put black marks on your credit report without you knowing it:

• You go through a divorce and your spouse has spent your credit cards up to the limit and left you holding the bag.
• An unpaid bill from your careless college years can keep you from a loan until it is fixed.
• You moved out of an apartment and the electric company never sent you a bill for your last month there. Now you have a late fee charge off on your credit report and it is keeping you from getting a credit card.
• A creditor or car dealer fraudulently places a black mark on your credit report.
• A bill paying service you are using "forgets" to send in your payment.
• A contractor you hired places a black mark on your credit history because you refused to pay him for unfinished or shoddy work.
• You bounced or over drafted a check in your checking account.
• You were late paying your credit card payment.

Fresh Start: The Authoritative Guide To Consumer Credit Repair If you have credit problems, you keep getting rejected for credit, or you have not established credit, you must get this easy to read Fresh Start book from Horizons Unlimited. We cannot say enough good things about Fresh Start, the best debt resource we've seen, covering more topics related to your debt than anyone. It walks you through each of the remedies available to you to remove negative credit. Forget credit doctors who scam you out of $600 or more, this book shows you how to do it free yourself. There's great step by step tips on analyzing your credit report, disputing bad marks with credit bureaus, negotiating tips, common mistakes, laws that work in your favor, well written sample dispute letters, credit bureau phone numbers, web sites, and addresses, settling bad debts AND getting the creditor to remove them from your file. There's tips for people who default on government student loans, divorce & credit, bankruptcy, judgments, old delinquent accounts, credit card fraud, everything imaginable. This book is available from them as a CDROM, as a book, or as an instant electronic download. By ordering the download, you can start immediately and it's searcheable.

Tricks of the "Credit Doctors"
There is NO way to simply erase bad credit. Most of these expensive services (many who can charge hundreds of dollars) are nothing but scams that prey on those down on their luck with promises of making your bad history go away. in fact, we think you should avoid credit doctors at all costs. They just charge you $500-$1000 to do what you can do for yourself for free. But the harsh law of credit physics is pretty hard to beat. If a black mark on your credit history is correct, not a person alive can remove it. But there are a few tricks to that the "credit doctors" use. One friend of ours was at a credit doctor's office, ready sign an $800 check over to them, when he got uneasy about the fact that the salesman seemed to be over hyping their ability, as well as the financial benefits of their service. Luckily, our friend walked out, but many others are not so lucky. Read the chapter How To Restore Your Credit Yourself for more details.

How To Contact The Big Three Credit Bureaus
Equifax (Click Here To Visit The Web Site) (800) 685-1111 Equifax Credit Information Services, Inc. P.O. Box 740241 Atlanta, GA 30374
Experian (888) 397-3742   (888) EXPERIAN P.O. Box 2002 Allen, TX 75013
Trans Union LLC Consumer Disclosure Center (800) 888-4213 P.O. Box 1000 Chester, PA 19022

Tips to stay credit worthy: