by CapnKush_
**US ONLY** : not sure what’s available in other country’s. If the infos supplied by a commenter who may know, I’ll be happy to add it. 🙂
Added Canada thank you u/xxHEYxx
So I run across this a lot. Young or old, it doesn’t matter. YOU ARE ENTITLED BY LAW TO GET A FREE CREDIT REPORT ONCE A YEAR. This does **NOT** effect your credit. As of right now these reports are free weekly due to Covid-19, until April/2021
I know a lot of people wonder what their credit is or get sad when they get declined for things and don’t know what to do.
A great first step is to get a detailed credit report. You can get 1 a year from each of the credit reporting agencies. Great if you’re trying to build your credit and may not know what is on your history. Of course it’s good for everyone to check their credit report once a year just to be safe, or if you suspect something fishy happening with your credit. Remember credit goes down a lot easier than it goes up.
Here’s the link I use to get it, this is the same one that’s been used for years. If you feel more comfortable, their is a dot.gov link provided below courtesy of, u/Immediate-Nobody.
www.annualcreditreport.com/index.action
This is a credit report, it does not show your credit score. It will however show a detailed report of every account effecting your credit including ones in collections. From my recollection it even provided phone numbers for the agencies I owed to.
Hope this helps any people. I know credit can be confusing and frustrating. If anyone has any credit questions I’ll try to answer them. Have a good one everyone!
edit thanks u/Immediate-Nobody : added to the info.
Due to COVID, they’re offering free credit reports weekly, until April/2021. I’m not sure if it’s the full report, but I can’t imagine why it wouldn’t be.
Edit: If you don’t like OPs link you can use www.consumer.ftc.gov/ , and just click “Get your free credit report.”
Canada:
Some additional notes, info and tips :
Get Credit Karma or something equivalent. It doesn’t provide FICO but it has plenty of info worth using. I find it to be pretty on the money for me personally. Pretty much a must have.
If you are trying to rebuild credit a good start is to pull these reports. Pay down anything you can afford to and remember, it’s always worth trying to negotiate a lower payoff.
Second, get a secured credit card. This is a credit card given in collateral for an up front deposit. My first one was $300. Sometimes they are refundable after responsible payments for a year, sometimes they aren’t. ALWAYS check card terms. It sucks but if you have bad credit even if it’s due to medical or something out of your control, it’s a little harder to get started. You have to start somewhere though.
Just because you have a decent score does not mean you all of a sudden will get approved for everything. You still need an established history. Don’t think you need a second credit line? Think again.
All debt effects your credit, if your grandma said, medical doesn’t do anything blah blah. Yah maybe 80 years ago. Medical, school, any debt will destroy your credit. Figure it out before that happens.
I don’t have time to right now but a few commenters stated if you check the Experian, Equifax or TransUnions website’s you may be able to get a credit score for free. I don’t know the terms or even if all 3 do it. Got a baby crying, I’ll try to add more later. Thanks everyone for all the feedback and I’m glad and hope this helps people.