Who Should You Order Your Credit Report From?
June 15, 2009
By Mike Wayman
With so many credit report companies offering credit report services these days it can be difficult to tell who to get your credit reports from. National television commercials offer free credit reports to consumers but there has to be a catch, right?
The catch is quite simple. Many of these “free” credit report providers aren’t the well intentioned do-gooders they say they are. In fact, what they’re really after is what’s known as an “up-sell” in the sales industry. Sure, they might give you something that looks like a full fledged credit report, but what they’re really after is the ability to sell you their products and services.
The most annoying aspect of these free credit report websites is that they will continue to email you for years if you let them in their efforts to sell you their credit repair services. I like to think of these free credit report sites as gigantic bait and switch schemes. They reel you in with the bait (a free credit report) but they immediately switch to sales as soon as they give you the report.
You also need to be careful about who you give your social security number to these days. As a former police officer I’m highly suspicious of anyone that asks me to give out my social security number, especially when the product they provide is completely free of charge. Isn’t your social security number more valuable than a free credit report?
My advice is to get your credit reports directly from the credit bureau’s themselves. Just Google Experian, Transunion, and Equifax. You’ll be able to get a valid copy of your credit report directly from the source.
If you are looking for a free credit report to begin the credit repair process, I would first seek out a trustworthy credit repair company and ask what the credit repair representative advises. Some companies will want you to order your reports directly from the bureaus while other credit repair firms will want to pull credit on your behalf. If you are seeking a credit report for your own use, the bureaus will give you a free copy every year if you ask for it.
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