Good Reasons To Order Your Free Credit Report
Posted at by ifydcat on category Credit
Haven’t we all noticed those humorous TV commercials imploring us to send off for a free credit report? I just have to smile at those poor musicians taking any gig to make ends meet. We laugh at the adverts, but we know what they’re really saying: life is not completely under our control. You may love the commercial, but do you really say to yourself, “it’s time to stop what I’m doing, get up and go online for free credit report immediately”?
If you’re not, well…maybe you should be. Whether some free offer turned into a monthly charge that I wasn’t aware of, or I’ve become the unwitting victim of identity theft, these unknown credit issues can last a lot longer than I might imagine.
So why should I even bother to check my free credit report? The reasons fall into two buckets: Opportunities and Obligations. A fine credit score can open Possibilities to enhance your lifestyle. At the other extreme, a bad credit score may make it expensive or difficult to carry our your basic Duties.
Under Possibilities, we have consumer lending vehicles like credit cards, mortgages and auto loans. Under Responsibilities, we find car insurance rates and jobs. I’m happy to inform you that there is a way to get proactive about all this: I have the legal right to get my free credit report once every twelve months from the big three reporting agencies.
Most people know that a lender will check your credit score before making a loan, but not all of us know that a less-than-stellar credit report can adversely affect your insurance rates, or even prevent you from getting a job! This is true: a colleague of mine completed his business degree, interviewed at a Fortune 500 corporation, and soon thereafter heard back from the company. What they told him was the last thing he expected to hear: the human resources director wanted to hire him, but his credit report would not allow her to do so!
Happy ending: he quickly sent off for his free credit report, repaired the credit problem by paying off a small bill, and was hired. We can excuse him for not checking his credit score sooner because this was before the days of those great free credit report TV spots.
Now that you’ve heard my great advice, a thought occurs to me: isn’t it time to order my free credit report? I can’t help but wonder if there’s some small issue hiding there that might just derail my own plans.