How To Get A Free Credit Score and Free Credit Report With No Credit Card

When the Fair And Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACTA) was passed, one of the provisions it gave consumers was the right to a free credit report once a year.  Because of this Act, you could get one from each of the bureaus (Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion). There's actually a couple more credit bureaus that you can get a free report from.  CBC is a midwest "division" of Equifax.  They are also related to Innovis, who is becoming a big player in the credit bureau game.  They are starting to be considered the 4th major credit bureau.  They also have to give you a free credit report once a year.

You can get your free credit reports online.  Back when FACTA was first passed, all these different websites came about and offered free credit reports and you could get your scores too, but they all made you have a credit card and they'd suck you into a monthly charge for your credit score and/or credit monitoring service, offering it "free" for a trial period, knowing full well that many people would forget to cancel it in time and they could just rake in the money.  The FTC and the bureaus did very little to market and make the public aware that they could get a completely free credit report by just going to www.annualcreditreport.com and request them without a credit card. However, they don't give you your credit score.

Well, they finally got a little spanking for being so deceptive.  So now, they have to give you your free credit report and score for a couple different situations.  If you applied for credit from a business and you were denied or if they gave you credit but on less favorable terms, the business (think lender or creditor) has to notify you plus, since July 2011, you get to have a credit report WITH your credit score since it was used against you when being denied or getting less than the best terms. 

But, there are also two other places you can get your credit report with a credit score for free.  The first one is by Equifax.  It is called Quizzle.com.  With Quizzle.com, you will get a free report and score all year long, but it only updates twice a year. Still, at least you can see where you're at and every six months, you can see if there have been any changes.  The second one is from TransUnion.  The website you go to for that one is called CreditKarma.com.  You do not get a FICO score but you get their version which is called a VantageScore.  Its similar to FICO, but does not have the same algorithms and could be higher or lower than your FICO score.  They also give you a score for your auto insurance. (yep, some auto insurance companies pull your credit to factor that in as part of the basis for the cost of your premiums, or if you are even "worthy" of auto insurance from them).  The additional good thing about Credit Karma is that you can check your credit score all year long from them and its always free!

So, here is some contact information to get your free credit reports:

Annual Credit Report Request Service
PO Box 105281
Atlanta, GA 30348-5281

By Phone:  877-322-8228
Online:  www.annualcreditreport.com

Innovis 
Attention: Consumer Assistance
PO Box 1689
Pittsburgh, PA  15230-1689 

By Phone: 800- 457-0247
(Innovis is famous for changing their mailing address and phone number. Hopefully, these will still work for you).
Online:  innovis.com (go to the tab at the top that says "Personal Services", then click on the link to "Obtain Copy of your Innovis Credit Report" for the easiest way without jumping through all their hoops.  You will be able to download it to your computer from there).

Credit Karma (TransUnion with free score)
CreditKarma.com

Quizzle (Experian with free score)
quizzle.com

PS:  Don't forget, there are other reporting companies like ChexSystems, Telecheck, and Certegy.

Chex Systems, Inc.
7805 Hudson Road, Ste. 100
Woodbury, MN  55125

By Phone:  800-428-9623
By Fax:      602-659-2197
Online:  www.consumerdebit.com

Telecheck Services, Inc.
Attention: Consumer Resolutions-FA
PO Box 4514
Houston, TX 77210-4514 

By Phone: 800-366-2425
Online:  http://www.firstdata.com/telecheck/telecheck-request-file-report.htm

Certegy Check Systems, Inc.
PO Box 30296
Tampa, FL  33630-3296

By Phone: 866-543-6315
Online:  www.AskCertegy.com

PSS:  Don't forget, there are Residential and Tenant Screening reporting agencies too! 

LexisNexis

By Phone:  877-448-5732
Online:  https://personalreports.lexisnexis.com/resident_history_report.jsp

CoreLogic Safe Rent
Attention:  Consumer Relations
PO Box 509124
San Diego, CA 92150

By Phone:  888-333-2413
Online:  http://www.corelogic.com/industry/multifamily-housing-solutions.aspx 

Tenant Data Services
PO Box 5404 
Lincoln, NE 68505-0404

By Phone: 402-934-0088 or Toll Free 800-228-1837
Online:  http://www.tenantdata.com/downloads/AuthorizationforFileDisclos_new.pdf
Information page:  http://tenantdata.com/personalreport.php

I bet you thought this list would never end.  Well, that's all I'm gonna give you for now.  Ugh, it seems like everyone or every company can know more about us than we can remember about ourselves!  If you want help getting rid of some of the information you'd rather not have on your reports and don't want to tackle it yourself, feel free to contact me at the email or phone number listed above on the right, or leave a comment below.  I'll respond.  I like to help people fight the system!

Financial Credit Bureaus You Should Know About

So, you thought there were only 3 credit bureaus. Nope, though there are the main 3, Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion that report your credit, there are some more that report on your banking activity.  I am sure you have heard of them and you probably have a report with something on at least one of them.

There are 3 main banking credit reporting agencies but, there are more than just those 3, and most of them are related to or share information with at least 1 of the other ones.  I'm talking about the ones the banks use to decide if they will open an account for you.  When you want to open a new checking account, many times they pull your credit from at least one of the big 3 credit bureaus, but they will usually pull your information from the financial reporting agencies as well.  Here is a list of some of them:

• ChexSystems.  This used to be Scan.  They have partnerships or business relationships with a lot of banks and merchants.  It is also now owned by eFunds, which leads the nation in electronic payments and risk management.
• TeleCheck.  They are part of the First Data family.  They work like ChexSystems and many banks and credit unions use their services.
• Early Warning Services (EWS).  They are also now in partnership with eFunds.  Many banks and credit unions use this. Sometimes you can open a bank account and then a week or two later it will be closed or frozen with pending closure because the bank's loss mitigation/risk management department pulled a report from EWS.
• Fidelity National Information Services.  Formerly Certegy, a real pain in the butt company, and now they are partnered with eFunds and Telecheck.
• Cross Check.  They partner with Telecheck.

So you see, there are so many different bureaus that have access to your personal information.  The ones I listed above are all considered Credit Reporting Agencies (CRA)  and have to comply with the FCRA.  This is good for you because the FCRA gives you the right to dispute anything on your report and they, like the big 3 credit bureaus, have to make sure that the information they report is 100% correct.  You are also entitled to a free report every year and a free report if you have been denied an account if it was based on information they supplied to the bank you applied at.

They sometimes can be more difficult to get negative entries removed from and many times they will try to only allow information to be removed if their subscriber, the bank that put the information there, tells them to.  But you can dispute, and you can get those bad reports removed.

I will follow up later with some more information about these financial CRA's at a later date and will give you some tips on disputing on the crap that shows up and makes your banking life a pain.  Hopefully, you will learn what you need to do to be able to open a new account, if that has been a problem for you, so you don't have to keep going to check cashing stores and paying ridiculous fees just to be able to use your hard earned money.  You'll be able to walk into a bank with confidence and sit down to open an account without fear, knowing that when they run your identifying information, you'll receive a handshake and congratulations for your new account!