Where to Get All 3 Credit Reports for Free

There is one site that is sanctioned by the U.S. government to provide a free copy of your credit report from each of the three bureaus, once a year. Mind you, this is just your credit report, and doesn’t include your score (that costs money).  At Community Ladders, we don’t pay much attention to scores, because everything we do is designed to boost one’s score going forward.  Getting a score – in most cases – is just a cause for anxiety. That said, if people are anticipating needing credit in 6 to 12 months (say, for a car or home), we engage in a myriad of tactics to boost credit scores in the short term.

Getting copies of your credit reports, on the other hand, is something everyone should do.  At Community Ladders we ask members to pull their free file for their first session, then around month 3, and then in month 9. On their membership anniversary, we start the process again.  This cycle gives us a chance of spotting credit fraud (i.e. new accounts that you don’t recognize).  That said, there is nothing wrong with getting them all at once.  For members with particularly complicated credit histories, I will often ask them for all three so I know exactly the work we have to do to repair his or her credit.

When you go through annualcreditreport.com (or call 877-322-8228), you will choose one credit bureau at a time to request your report.  Two things to keep in mind: 1) Most of the time you have the option to mask your whole social security number from the online output. – DO THIS!, and 2) You are often given a summary first (from 1 to 5 pages) – this is NOT your report.  Look for a button that says ‘Print Report’ or ‘Print Full Report.’  Click this and save the resulting file (which can be anywhere from 8 to 45 pages) as a PDF or the like.  Keep the file in a safe place, and print a hardcopy if you’d like.

If you are e-mailing or putting it in your shared Dropbox folder to share with your Community Ladders advisor, be sure it does not have your social security number in it and use a passworded/encrypted internet connection that you trust.

What to Look For: Your credit report will have three major sections: personal information, accounts with negative information, and other accounts.  Review each of these sections thoroughly to make sure that there aren’t any errors.  Check that your names and addresses listed are accurate, you recognize all of the accounts (whether negative or positive), and that the payment history, balance, and account statuses are correct.