I understand that I am entitled to 3 free credit reports per year. How do I get this service?

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January 19th, 2009 - Posted by Joe

The following post in our Reader Question series is an actual user submitted question. To maintain the integrity of the original question, we do not edit or change reader questions in any way.

Q: I understand that I am entitled to 3 free credit reports per year. How do I get this service?

A: The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) states that each and every US consumer is entitled to one free credit report from each of the three credit bureaus each year. The credit bureaus jointly set up AnnualCreditReport.com as a place where consumers can easily request these free credit reports. You can receive one report from each bureau per twelve month period, so most experts suggest staggering your requests so that you receive your three reports over the course of a year. It is important to note that the credit reports that you receive from AnnualCreditReport.com will not include a credit score.

We don't believe that checking your credit report once per year is sufficient since the information on your credit file is constantly changing. Additionally, your credit reports can vary greatly from bureau to bureau. As such, we believe that consumers should check their credit reports from each bureau at least once per quarter and even more frequently if you are actively in the market for any type of credit or loan. The most cost effective way to do this is to sign up for a credit report monitoring service that will not only give you access to your credit reports and score from all three bureaus, but also monitor your credit files for any changes with three bureau credit monitoring. You can learn more about credit report monitoring services by reading our reviews and comparison at NextAdvisor.com.