Free Credit Report
You have seen the ads on TV and heard them on the radio. They purport to let you in on a very closely guarded secret that lenders do not want you to know. Your credit score. They further imply that if you dont know your credit score, you can be overcharged for loans. All is well however, because they will provide you with a credit report free of charge if you enroll in their credit monitoring service.
Most of us dont know that we can get a free credit report for the asking by just calling any of the three credit reporting companies. The ads you see and hear are not made by any of the three credit reporting companies. These ads are made by credit monitoring services. Enrollment in such a service costs about 25 dollars a month and will warn you if and when your identity has been stolen.
It is sort of like paying your car insurance provider an extra 300 dollars a year to tell you when you have had an accident.
After you enroll in monitoring service you will be given the free credit report that you could have gotten free from a credit reporting company without having to enroll in anything.
Once you find out how badly you have been taken, you can cancel your enrollment. Unfortunately it takes up to three months to process your cancellation, effectively costing you up to 75 dollars.
Okay, now, what can you do with the free credit report that cost you 75 dollars. Well, you can take it to a loan agent and discover it looks exactly like his copy of your credit report. Will it lower the cost of your loan? Not likely because that cost has already been determined by the information he has obtained from his copy of your credit report. By the way, that copy is not free and the cost of it will be charged to you as part of the cost of your loan.
Can you avoid that cost by providing your copy of the credit report? Not likely. Loan companies go to credit reporting companies for information to ensure the information is correct. You see, they do not trust you. If they did, there would be no need for credit reporting agencies. Loan companies would merely ask you a few questions and take you at your word.
Seems that the only thing this ‘free credit report’ scheme does is make people mad.