I know I have bad credit, particularly from a Bankrupcy in 1996 to go along with late payments and collection notices. I really want to try and clean up my credit, and the first thing I need to do is actually get my credit reports. Here are my questions: 1) How many credit agencies (and who are they) should I seek a credit report from. 2) What is the best way to obtain the report? What are the charges? Is there any way to get them free? 3) How do I interpret my score? What's a bad score, what's a good score? I've just discovered this site and I'm looking forward to going through the posts and learning more about this. Any help you can give is greatly appreciated! Thanks, Darren
welcome to creditnet.... yes you need all three credit reports transunion equifax experian you can order them through the websites. if you have been denied credit or are unemployed and will be looking for work you can get them for free, otherwise about $8.50 each or $12.00 with score(Transunion includes score if you ask). check your reports and them make copies of them. highlight all the negative information and them come back to the board. while you are waiting,search old posts on bankruptcy, disputes, etc, so you can ask the "right" questions.
So each time I want to look at my credit report I'll have to pay a fee again? Is there a service where I can pay one fee and keep checking the report? BTW, my name is Joe
Welcome! I would suggest going to the three CRA websites themselves and checking out the fees (can vary for different states and they also tell you how you can get them for free if you qualify). Transunion.com, Experian.com, Equifax.com They have reading material that pretty much answers your all the questions you've asked here in detail. You can also do searches right here on credit net on rebuilding. The big debate of why we have to pay for our own credit reports is always an issue, but I guess for now it's a fact of life. What I do is just stagger them. It's not a major issue to get them every 4 months or so. They have services where you can check your reports out for a fee, their websites will explain all of their options to you. Good luck.
Answer to question 1: No, not necessarily. If you have disputes you will receive a new report each time your dispute investigation is finished. Answer to question 2: Yes, but not for all three. www.creditexpert.com charges 79.95 per year for unlimited access to your reports. There is a 30day trail period within which you can cancel and will not have to pay. With creditexpert you can also initiate disputes directly from your report. For TU you can use worthknowing or identityguard. IdendityGuard gives you a quarterly report and score and advises you via e-mail and/or cell phone of any activity to the accounts on your report such as negs added or inquiries made. Equifax offers a few online products such as ScorePower (one time=$12.95, 4 for $38.95) or CreditWatch (6 reports but no score included for $39.95). I use: Equifax-Scorepower Experian-CreditExpert TransUnion-IdentityGuard Mist
