Credit Score Information

What is the difference between a Credit Report and a Credit Score?

There are some important differences between your credit report and credit score. Your report is a detailed look into your credit history, while your credit score is an evaluation of your credit history based on that report. To address any potential problems you may have with your credit information, you need to first know your credit score and then protect your credit by looking at your detailed credit report online.

Why Check My Credit Score?

It would be a good idea to perform a credit check and find out your credit score when applying for free credit, a credit card, loan or job with a business. If your credit score is below 650, your future finances may be significantly affected. Get a free credit score online today and begin working on strengthing your credit rating.

Credit Report Information

Why Check My Credit Report?

Checking your credit report can give you some power in the loan or credit decision process. The evaluation of your credit file — something that most lenders use do decide whether they will do business with your or not — is only available from credit service management and identity theft protection services, which will also merge all three credit reports into one easy-to-read report. Getting your tri-merge credit report can be an important step in getting a mortgage, loan or credit card or just when looking to improve your credit to help get out of debt.

How do I get my Annual Free Credit Report?

All consumers have a legal right to receive a free credit report annually from the three major credit bureaus — Equifax, Experian and TransUnion — based on the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). These can be obtained from AnnualCreditReport.com. Your free annual credit report, however, does not include any free credit scores.

Credit Bureaus

The primary function of a credit bureau is to keep records about your credit history. Every time you get a credit card, or a loan, it is noted in this file. How good you have been about paying your bills also goes into the file. There will be information there about if you have ever filed for bankruptcy, if you have let a bill go to a collections agency, or if you managed to pay off a loan. Good and bad information about your financial decisions goes into this file. The credit bureau takes all of this information and uses it to create your credit report, and your credit score.

Credit Monitoring

Credit Monitoring services watch your credit reports for any type of change including, but not limited to:
• Inquires made into your credit report by lenders, creditors, and anyone else
• Updates or changes that were made about your name or your address
• New credit cards that were opened in your name
• New loans that were taken out in your name
Once a change has been made, the monitoring service will likely inform you about it daily, weekly or monthly. While credit monitoring cannot prevent identity theft from occurring, it can help prevent additional damage. The sooner you learn that someone is using your identity, the sooner you can take steps to prevent them from causing more harm. Credit monitoring, or better yet, 3-bureau credit report monitoring, can be your first line of defense against identity theives and credit fraud.