Free Credit Report

A recent news article reminded me that I still hadn’t bothered to get my free credit reports, so I finally got around to it at www.AnnualCreditReport.com. The good news is that it works. The bad news is that all it does is link you to the other sites and saves you from having to fill in your name and address on each one.

Each of the three agencies had different ways of verifying that you are who you say you are. TransUnion was a pain, asking for multiple account numbers before giving me access. I wonder what would have happened if their info was wrong in this area?

They all had my basic credit info and it seemed to be correct. None of them had my correct birthday, which I always thought was a major part of determining who is who. The dates varied by eight years. They said I’ve lived in places I’ve never lived. My last employer was from a job that ended in 1990. One place had an alternate spelling for my name, along with the correct one. There are lots of accounts that I can’t figure out, but none were opened recently and all are paid on time and/or have a 0 balance.

Now I understand why my credit is so good. There are multiple listings of the same information, giving me a history of having Really Big Loans and paying them off.

I’m sure glad nobody expects this information to be accurate.