Web Wealth: Personal credit resources
Start mopping up your personal credit crisis with a close look at the financial information on your records that are kept by those mysterious credit-rating agencies. These sites will show the way.
Start mopping up your personal credit crisis with a close look at the financial information on your records that are kept by those mysterious credit-rating agencies. These sites will show the way.
Annual reports. This is the only legitimate Web site that allows you to request a free credit report every 12 months from the three big credit-reporting companies - Equifax Inc., Experian, and TransUnion L.L.C. What you won't get for free, however, is your credit score. Incredibly, you have to pay for that privilege - about $15 for a single company's score.
Reaching out. If you don't agree with what you see on the reports, you have to contact the credit-reporting companies. Here is a government site with links to each, and other helpful material. There's a list of the five factors that make up your credit score. Of them, your payment history is what matters most. How much you owe is the second-biggest factor. This page was prepared by the Consumer Federation of America and Fair Isaac Corp. (the company that developed the most widely used scoring method).
http://go.philly.com/creditinfo
Fico forums. The Fair Isaac Corp., or Fico, runs forums where consumers can ask questions about credit issues. There's a long thread on recovering from medical debt. Others cover rebuilding credit. And many are full of individuals' stories of their efforts to get and pay off credit cards or other loans, or to improve rotten credit scores. Click on "credit education" for a selection of tutorials, videos, and news feeds on the subject of credit, credit scores, and consumer rights.
http://ficoforums.myfico.com/fico
Federal Trade Commission. Here at the Federal Trade Commission site, you can read about your rights to review and contest what is on your credit reports. There is also a warning about scam offers for supposedly free reports - but only if you purchase some other product. And if you happen to discover you're a victim of identity theft, the steps you need to take are outlined here.